NfaN, Book 4: Of Yin and Yang
by KairiVenomus
Summary: Ever since the damning Shadow Dancer, Eloquim, was defeated by Kai, peace seems to have finally struck Ninjago once more.All seems well- except the fact that everywhere, wormholes keep appearing and destroying entire towns. The strange phenomena seems to have a pattern; a star-shaped pattern, that is. Will Lloyd and Kai be able to stop it?Or will everything disappear forever?
1. Chapter 1

"**NIGHTMARES FOR A NINJA" BOOK 4:  
"OF YIN AND YANG"  
(the book of the Originals)  
**_**based off a hit television series featured on "Cartoon Network,"  
**__**Ninjago:**____**Masters of Spinjitzu**_

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**CHAPTER ONE**:  
BIRTHRIGHT

_The tea shop_ was quiet, dull, and dreary, lacking any kind of extreme premonitions of evil. Monday mornings were usually that way, if one disclaimed the oddities that usually were encountered on Mondays. But in all of its unusually usual Mondayness, this particular Monday was one that stuck out worse than a sore thumb. The empty shop echoed with the current newscasts that were televised all over the displaced continent of Ninjago. All news reports were centered around the strange phenomena that had occurred some time ago on the site of Darkley's Boarding School for Bad Boys, as well as the strange attack of the reporter Gayle Gossip, and the blood-drained body of Darreth Troother found earlier that morning. The room, square and utterly condensed, reeked of old herbs and medications, preferably wanted over the disgust of actual hospitals. Along the back shelf, stacked twelve rows high, bottled mixtures and self-canned remedies rotted with a lonely ledge life. A small, square television hung in the corner of Mystake's brewery room hidden in the back of the shop, where she and her apprentice-slash-niece, Linh, found themselves glued to the subtitles and replacement reporter's face. Beth Blather stared back with a grim, pinched face.

"The cause of the attack is still unknown, but investigators are doing their best to uncover just who this redheaded attacker is and what their motivation could've carried." Beth swapped her ball-headed microphone to the other side, swiftly patting down her overdone blonde hair with intent that did her no good. Mystake paused in crunching sage with her bare hands to watch closer. Beth slightly shifted to the side to show, behind her, the view of Darkley's Boarding School for Bad Boys, in the midst of being demolished by several different destruction companies.

"On a more recent note," announced the reporter, waving her hand at the building. The top had already been torn off, leaving for the middle sections to be destroyed by a wrecking ball anytime soon. "The number of mysteries in Ninjago is beginning to increase, and strangely they're circulating around Ninjago's heroes, the unbreakable team of ninjas. The ninja have been missing for almost an entire two months since all these strange cases have occurred. It stirs up a lot of questions with the public. Are the ninja behind these killings? If not, what are they doing to stop it?" Beth looked entirely concerned, but Mystake knew that it only circulated around the production of the broadcast. The only concern the reporter had was whether or not her facial expressions would earn her a bigger check by the end of the day.

Mystake bent her head to continue grinding the sage into pulp while Linh stuck her nose into a grimoire at the table behind her. The old woman's fingers shook. She'd been doing this for so many years now that it was nearly impossible to forget the exact process it took to create a batch of Tomorrow or Never cookies. She had a special order come in this morning for two dozen of them to be finished by the evening. Whoever had been on the other end of the phone seemed greatly interested in making their future brighter with the risky use of Tomorrow or Never cookies, but whomever it was had ordered just enough to earn Mystake a handsome profit. She gently kneaded the sage into a roll of dough ready for flattening when she listened into Beth Blather's constant tone that everything she said shocked her.

"…recent arrest of Kai Smith for the brutal stabbing of fourteen-year-old Bradford Tudabone," said Beth, making Mystake's head cock to listen closer. Now _this _was the action an old lady wanted to hear. "Bradford was found stabbed on the scene of Darkley's almost a complete two months ago with twenty-seven stab wounds to his body total. Though police keep the location of the lacerations confidential, it is apparent that this murder was committed with the intent to kill. The suspect's fingerprints were found all over the body, marked with blood, along with the murder weapon, which was found nearby later the day of the investigation. It appears that what Smith used to attack Tudabone was a large animal tooth the size of the average adult male's foot. Police are unsure of the motives, but Smith pleads not guilty in the upcoming trial that will take place on the twelfth of December. Smith was also later revealed to be a part of the ninja's team when police removed his mask." Beth paused, taking a breath that gave her the chance to stare awkwardly into the camera. Mystake listened for the maintenance of her news report while jamming in wither seeds to the dough.

"Police ask anyone who has any information to come forward. It's greatly imperative that—"

_Ding. _

Mystake's head snapped up. The chime attached to her front door rarely ever rang. She checked her clock to make sure it wasn't the customer ready to pick up their cookies—it was only eleven-thirty—before wiping her hands to venture into the tea shop's main room.

She found the browser lightly scanning the shelves behind the front counter underneath the thick black sheen of sunglasses over his eyes. His nose twisted into a grimace. Mystake hadn't seen him come near the shop before; she would've remembered his face, young, handsome, and strangely pale. His red hair changed shadow formations with the lever-induced, single light bulb that dangled over their heads. "Can I help you?" rasped the elderly woman. She placed her hands against the wooden counter for support.

The boy scanned the shelves again, popping the collar of his dark button down with the curl of his lip. "_Yeah. _I'm here for a dose of Tomorrow's Tea. You got any?" He pressed, leaning backwards slightly, as if to assess Mystake's reaction. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"And what might you need Tomorrow's Tea for?" she asked in reference of today. Her thin fingers drummed lightly against the rotten wood.

The boy's sunglasses flashed. "I have business to do, lady. Now where is it? I need it."

Mystake twitched her nose. "No manners?" She stalled, waiting for a proper answer, but the boy sneered.

"Are you deaf? I said, I have business to do. Hurry up and give me a dose." He reached into his pocket, pulling out several golden coins in the process. They landed against her counter with feeble _clinks. _"Do it. I'm getting angry."

"I would advise," Mystake reeled, bending downwards underneath the counter to grab an on-the-go vial. Her payments today were large enough to pay off rent for the next two months. Holding the vial carefully in her hands, she glared into her reflection, pushed against the sunglasses over the boy's face. His pale, almost yellowing skin wrinkled when he scowled again, "that you be especially careful with this. Once you use it, its effects cannot be undone."

"Yeah, yeah, that's kinda the point, grandma," snapped the boy insultingly. "Gimme." Without waiting for her, he snatched it greedily out her hands, pocketing the small vial before she could blink. His manners were extremely poor. Mystake wondered about his mother's usefulness while watching him quickly retreat out the door. He was an odd character, but Mystake's intentions were more focused on the seventeen golden coins sitting in front of her face. She grabbed them and stuffed them into her pocket without waiting for fate to steal them back.

She turned to retreat back into the cozy cave of her brewery, but instead found the _ding _happening again. She wondered if it was the boy, returning for his money back, except she was wrong. Mystake turned to her next prominent customer with a blink. "Can I help you?" she drawled. The cookies were waiting.

The customer sized her up with a squinted gaze. Crystalline blue eyes stared at her underneath heavy blonde bangs, covering her thin eyebrows under a polish of gold, although the elegance of her hair and golden halo was countered by sloppy gray sweatpants and a T-shirt. She scanned the shelves behind Mystake as the previous client's had, except this one was much slower, calculating. The girl was in no rush. Instead, she pondered her choice before giving a direct answer. "Do you have…adder root?" She asked politely, holding in her hand a thin slip of paper. She seemed to have grabbed it from the brown, tattered messenger bag resting on her shoulder. "And chamomile? How about dragon's blood?"

"Slow," Mystake cautioned, but moved towards her back row to search for the adder root. She found the brown, earthy plant cased in a jar on the third bottom shelf. She placed it gently in a plastic baggie so it wouldn't be contaminated. She set it on the counter in front of the blonde girl before turning back for chamomile.

The dragon's blood wasn't hard to find, but the girl's next ingredient was. "Do you have Star Lover's Lip?" she asked. Mystake had to think about the last place she'd seen the flower. "Oh, and Essence of Combination?"

Mystake plucked the liquid bottle off the shelf, pouring a few drops into a vial similar to that of the boy's. The girl neatly placed the contents in her bag while, in return, exchanging them for small silver coins in pay for every herb she took. She squinted at her list. "Erm…do you possess…Birthright?"

Mystake froze. She felt her blood run cold. "By George, what do you need Birthright for?" she practically snapped. "That's a dangerous herb. It's used for Dark Magic, girl, don't you know what you're—" The old woman paused. She ran the list of ingredients the girl had already read off to her a few times in her head before the combination of plants and mixtures began to sound familiar. The Birthright only sealed the doom that Mystake knew this girl would be fulfilling if she sold her a flower.

"You're conducting a spell for Dark Magic," Mystake ogled. "You want to create a resurrection spell, don't you?"

The girl's eyes flashed. "I need to," she answered flatly.

"Girl, you don't know what you're getting into," Mystake responded quickly. "The consequences of resurrection spells are terrible. You don't want to have to upset the balance; an exchange for a lost life has to be made—"

"With a living one," finished the girl, nodding. Her eyes betrayed nothing. "I know. But I already have what I need, except that Birthright."

Mystake shook her head. It was far too dangerous. "I can't give you any. If I did…Whoever you're trying to bring back would be better off dead. There are worse consequences to what you're doing than just taking a human sacrifice. Dark Magic—_Black _Magic—you'll bring yourself closer to becoming a dark necromancer over a witch. I know you are," she added hastily with a sly look as the girl blushed. "No mere mortal would know about the Birthright Resurrection spell. Your mama must've had a mean grimoire."

The girl barely blinked. Mystake couldn't sway her. "My mother was an _extremely _powerful witch," answered the buyer, glancing around the room in boredom. Her eyes settled on Mystake with a grim flatten to her pink lips. "And I must have that Birthright. I'm sorry. But I need it. M-my son…" The girls' voice trailed away as quick as it had come. She looked at her feet.

Mystake sighed. It was a tough debate. On one hand, if she handed it over, the girl would be conducting Black Magic, and that was dangerous, able to endanger more than one life. On the other hand, the old woman knew what it was like to lose sight of someone you loved. She glanced at the Birthright, sheltered underneath the counter beside the Tomorrow's Tea, and sighed.

"You had better be careful," she warned, plucking the small bloom from below. The girl's head snapped up as Mystake passed on the small jar, filled with only one white blossom, thriving in its cage. The girl reached forward to take the can preciously in her hands, accidentally bumping the older woman with her fingertips.

Mystake was hit with the premonition instantly. Images, faces, information flooded into her body. A revelation echoed in her mind as she recoiled. "_You," _she gasped towards the girl, returning from tucking the Birthright jar safely into her messenger's bag. Mystake's hand shook. "Y-you're…I've heard about you."

The girl dropped two silver pieces onto the counter in front of her. "So?" She raised a nonchalant brow. "What of it?"

"You're Danielle _tŭmnina!" _Mystake gasped, shuffling backwards. The girl hardly blinked. "Twin of that wretched _baka, _Carolyne. _Tŭmnina, _I remember!" She rubbed her face. "I was just a girl when I first met you. How witchcraft has kept you young! I long to have that kind of magic. But that's only because you…" Swallowing, Mystake strived to regain control of herself, taking deep breaths repeatedly. This wasn't much to get overexcited about. "You're the daughter of the _originale pythonissam. _The Original Witch. Katherine."

Danielle stared at her. Her voice stayed level as she spoke. "Yes," she answered simply, clutching the strap of her bag. Mystake took another breath. "My mother was Katherine."

Mystake shook her head, turning away slightly. How extremely convenient to meet Danielle, _Tŭmnina, _Juliens. How strange! She remembered seeing the twins last when she was Linh's age. The strong witchcraft derived from Danielle's mother, the Original Witch, must've really been soaked straight from the tank. Mystake couldn't have kept herself such well-aged no matter what she did.

Mystake meant to turn back to Danielle with a comment about Katherine—_Katerina, _as she was called back then—but the daughter of the Original Witch, the purchaser of the dangerous Birthright Blossom, was gone.

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**please review! :D Go have an awesome day/night, my lovely readers! ^u^**


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO:  
**OF ALL THINGS CONSIDERED "NORMAL"

"_K…k…k-uyy."_

"Kai," he whispered softly, his voice tender and gentle. Trying as so not to scare her, he tipped his head to the side, catching her eye with his head propped against his chin. "Can _you _say that? _Kai."_

His name on her lips was nearly impossible to say. Her big brown eyes stared into his with the speech impediment practically gushing out her eyes like open veins. Disabling her, it coiled around her voice box, making it harder and harder to speak every time she came in here to see him, which was becoming less and less of a number and more like a granule of sand by time erosion. He dragged his plastic chair closer to the gray desk in front of him.

Nya tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, nervously fiddling with her fingers in her lap, now hardly visible over the lump of her belly. She chewed her lip and did her best to avoid his eyes. "Kuh…kuhhh…K-kuh…I."

"_Good! _Say it again," he pleaded. He leaned further against the desk. It was hard to look at her through the Plexiglas dividing them, especially when it was worn out with the scratches of people's fingernails etching their names into the transparent barrier. _Yo mama was here. Joe D wants to leave in 2010. Felix loves Fionacakes. _He'd memorized the etchings completely to where he probably could plagiarize the exact curves and points of the writer's handwriting. Glancing past a crude statement, Kai ducked his head to catch Nya's averted gaze with his own.

"You know you can do it. You just did it," he commented, "and you did _amazing. _It's not that hard. Come on, sis, you can do it. I believe in you. Say it with me: _Kai_."

Nya looked down, playing with the hem of her Clutch Powers sweatshirt, yanking on fraying strings harshly. She never wanted to really look him in the eye. Instead, she shook her head, more interested in tracing the design on her shirt than to pay attention to her brother. Today was no exception. "Nuh," she moaned. "No more."

Kai could've been bothered by the fact that she could say _no _when she had the power to say _Kai _but wasn't willing to. He could've been bothered by the fact that he had practiced this with her every day for the past six weeks, and every day she made progress in being able to pronounce his name, but the next visit they had she'd just forget him all over again. He could've been bothered by the fact that when she left him in two minutes, a guard would haul him back to that cramped vault called 'home,' where he'd sit doing nothing all day but wondering what everyone else was doing. He could've been bothered by the fact that he was being framed for murder when he hadn't committed anything at all, when in fact he was innocent. He could've been bothered by the fact that people were unrightfully treating him like crap, worse than just a couple little names. He could've been bothered by the fact that he'd almost gotten raped four times already, or the fact that all of his friends were gone, or the fact that the only person who remembered his name correctly was Rikku, and he wasn't even _in _jail. He could've been bothered that all of his friends, his _brothers, _didn't know _anything_ anymore.

But instead, Kai pretended that he had a chance at a new life, too. Only this one was much less promising. He reached up to run a hand through his ridiculously short hair. He missed the spikes terribly badly. "Okay, Nya," he breathed softly. He tapped his fingers rhythmically on the glass. "Let's try memory exercises, then."

Nya shook her head. "_No," _she stampeded, more persistently. Her eyes were fiery and frustrated, her hair flopping into her face when she shook her head. She poked out her bottom lip. "Hate."

Kai glanced at his hands. Nya couldn't speak when she'd woken up in the hospital, Rikku had said. She hardly knew the alphabet. She didn't remember anything, not her name, her address, her boyfriend(s.) She hadn't known anything about technological sciences, or the Ninja, or Sensei, or their father. Nya didn't understand what _pregnant _meant, until somebody told her that she was going to have a baby, leaving out the _vampire baby _part. Rikku had told Kai that Nya had expressed excitement. She didn't know about the baby she had lost, or the fight with Eloquim, or Lloyd, or Jay, or Cole, or Zane, or…or Kai. She didn't know anything.

It had made him cry.

Nya stamped her sneakers on the floor, pulling her arms around her belly. Kai had observed the fact that she liked to protect that baby more than her pinkies (trust him, Nya's pinkies were the most vulnerable, accident-prone part of her) ever had been. She rubbed the growing bulge with happy hands. "Buhb."

"Baby," Kai murmured tolerantly. He touched the window between them, wishing more than anything that he could hold her right now. "Bay-bee."

"Buh…" Nya squinted her brown eyes. "Yyyy…"

"Bay-bee."

"Byyeeeb."

"No. Bay-bee."

"Bbeeyaay?" Nya's face curled in frustration. "Byay…b-byee…" With her eyes growling at the ground, she tried with great difficulty to say _baby. _

Nya didn't understand what a brother was. At first, she had thought that the word _brother _was equivalent to _father, _and had assumed that Kai was the father of her baby. It had taken a lot of convincing and embarrassed tears from Nya to finally break it to her that Kai _wasn't _the father. (And thankfully, at that!) She stomped the floor again just as a loud screaming door behind Kai slid open. He felt the dread that haunted him for two minutes sink into action.

"Smith," barked a loud voice. Kai buried his face into his hands. _No, _he wanted to say, _just give me more time. Please. I have to hear her say my name again! _It was the only way for him to know that she still knew he existed, although the promises were becoming more and more fake-sounding to him when he told them to himself. "Time's up."

At that same moment, Rikku slipped through the door on the other side of the Plexiglas, broad and prepared to steal Nya from him again. He met the droid's sad blue eyes through the visible curtain separating them. "Come on, Nya," softly said the robot. "Time to go home. Edna has soup waiting. Won't that be nice?"

To Kai's information, Nya was being fostered by the Walkers. Apparently Edna was big on having a daughter to swoon over, but from what he'd heard, Jay was completely _oblivious _to her. He felt his heart begin to twist at the thought of it. It was hard to breathe when he even remotely _pictured _it. Before, Kai had wanted Jay to keep his hands off his sister. But now…Kai didn't think he'd ever say this, but he wanted Jay to show _some _kind of affection towards his sister, rather than the icy cold there was. How hard would it be to see the two in the same room without even knowing they'd been in love with each other?

Kai would've smacked his head against the table in front of him if he hadn't been yanked up by a guard, arms pulled roughly behind his back. He looked at Nya, who jumped up happily with her hand resting against the curve of her belly. Every day, she got bigger. She was _way _bigger than she had been two months ago. Kai wished that he could be there for her, to support her, to help her get through this better than to be the random guy behind the window that they took her to. Everyone may have said that Kai was her brother and that she needed to reconnect with him, but deep down, Kai knew Nya didn't care. She didn't _know. _They took her to see him almost every other day and she didn't even know why.

Nya turned to him with barely as much as a glance, but she waved. "Bye," she stumbled, walking out the door. Rikku looked at him over her tow head. _Will talk to you tomorrow, _he mouthed to Kai, referring to himself. Kai nodded. Rikku had been a great supporter throughout this whole thing. He was the one who was most helpful to Kai. He donated every fifteen minutes he had on Tuesdays and Fridays for Nya to be able to see Kai, but he was starting to think the interest in coming here was becoming a one-way hunger. He gave a smile of thanks towards Rikku.

And then they were gone.

Kai hung his head, allowing the cuffs to carry him back down the hallway. The dirtied concrete floors under his feet were the only thing he looked at down row F, looking for cell number 28-P with a guard on his heels. He could hear the loudness echoing off the white walls of all the inmates shouting, being obnoxious as normal. The guard tugged on Kai's orange shirt, commanding him to walk faster. Kai picked up his pace.

They stopped at 28-P, the guard unlocking the automatic door with a swipe of his card into the dial. The window-less entrance slid open, revealing an unwelcoming threshold. Kai took a deep breath and stepped inside. His heart was too heavy; he wanted to take a nap on his rock hard, mattress-less bed now.

Except…that wasn't really an option.

Kai's cell had always been a loner cell. He was on his own in here, a solitary style of living. He was a one-man band in this place. But instead, his bed was occupied by a lounging, steel form, arms crossed behind his head, eyes closed in meditating sleep. His normal kimono was replaced by an orange jumpsuit similar to the fire ninja's. Kai's jaw dropped unintentionally. That was _his _bed! And…

"_Sensei?"_

Wu's right eye popped open, revealing a crystal blue eye from underneath the lid. His beard had been trimmed to just a scruffy moustache and goatee, but Kai would know that face anywhere. The old man snuggled deeper into the bunk. "Student," he responded.

The last time Kai had seen his sensei, he'd been evil. But now…with Eloquim dead, the evil must've somehow fallen away from Wu's body. He didn't know whether or not to trust that judgment completely just yet. After all, obviously he'd done something bad to get stuck into jail in the first place. Uncomfortably, Kai shifted feet, looking around the room for something to do while his sensei was laying in his bed.

"I understand you've gotten yourself framed," scoffed Sensei. Kai's eyes snapped back to attention. "Really, I leave you for a day and you end up finding a way to get in trouble with the _law?" _Sensei's head shook back and forth. "That is no way to learn."

"L—_learn? _Sensei," Kai would've dropped to his knees, "you gotta help me. What do I do? I need your advice. Everyone, the Ninja, they're all—"

"Brainwashed," filled in the old man. Kai paused. How had he known that? A glimmer of the old Sensei flickered in his programmed eyes. "Zane's brother Rikku contacted me."

"WHY? But you're—"

"Not evil," Sensei cut him off with a warning glare. Kai knew better than to challenge it, instead sinking onto the floor, crossing his legs and sticking his elbows on his knees. Sensei took to sitting up. He stared down at his student with wise, old eyes. "I managed to find a way in here—now all we need is to get you out."

Kai rubbed his forehead exhaustedly. "How?" he asked, defeated. "I'm in prison for something I didn't do, but nobody wants to listen to me."

Sensei's eyes flashed. It was something that Kai remembered seeing a lot back when the old man was alive; it meant he had a plan. Sitting up straighter, he listened closely as Sensei stroked the nonexistent beard on his chin with a smirk. "Easy answer," said Wu boastfully. "We break you out."

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**Please review! ^^ Thanks for reading, and have an awesome day! **


	3. Chapter 3

**There's been a POV change! Since there are only 3 main characters (Kai, Lloyd, and Seiko) the P.O.V doesn't have to be third person limited/omnicient anymore. So only when we revert to Kai's POV will it be 3rd person, but then, since the book IS the book of the Yin & Yang, it will be told in 1st person between Lloyd and Seiko. You'll see who's POV it is, when in 1st, underneath the chappie title. :3**

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**CHAPTER THREE:  
**LOVELY AND DARK AND DEEP  
_~ Yin~_

_I opened my eyes. _Admittedly, the sunlight radiating off of the two separate suns practically stabbed me in the corneas, but I wasn't _actually _going to say that. I grabbed a hold of a tuft of something silky, soft, and warm, wrapped around me in a neat envelope that I could've shrunken into forever. It felt nice to stick my face into the grass beneath my body and inhale its extremely spicy scent, almost like when Cole was cooking something _really gross _in the kitchen. Except I would've preferred _that _over _this. _

Whatever 'this' counts as.

Seventy 'days', fourteen hours, twenty-seven minutes, and point-twenty-one seconds. That is how long it's (roughly) been since I got stuck in this godawful hellhole that consumes people whole. Don't ask me how I got here, don't ask me when. I'm just making an assumable approximation here. It's been one helluva ride, that much I could tell you. It's not fun sticking around here in some weird dimension where the grass is white, the earth is red, and the townspeople have the manners of a two-year-old baby. When you're fortunate enough to come across a town, anyway. They're scattered, leaving large, unoccupied distances between each other as though they are kingdoms scattered across the realm, all unattached to one another. It's like they don't even know the other villages exist, except for when you come across those once-in-a-lifetime travelers who've been around the block a couple of times. The nice ones who actually converse peacefully with you are difficult to come by. The two suns in the sky, every evening, set in a fashion that puts them straight across from each other in two different horizons. They never settle below the mountain ranges or the treetops. Instead, they hang out there for a couple of hours, then rise into a similar arc into the sky, slowly inching towards one another with every second that dies into past. You think the suns are directly across from each other because of the way your eyes perceive it, but they actually are inches away from each other, slipping past one another to go fall at the opposite horizon they'd sat in the night before. It was creepy, but I had gotten used it after watching the process happen so many times over. Those suns never actually went down in this stupid kingdom.

The kingdom of death.

A kingdom lead by Noel _baka _Smith. People kept referring to him as "the Prince of Darkness," but that had absolutely zero significance to me. I just thought of him as the _baka, _the idiot, and by his pretty pet name "Lameo." Listening to the news that differed between towns, it seemed that his coronation as King of the Underworld was in the near future. I wasn't really too interested, because the guy had practically date-raped me a month or whatever back. From what everyone said, it sounded like the _baka _wasn't interested in high-tailing the duo of prisoners he'd released with a wave of his hand. I don't actually think he knew I existed anymore because he thought I was dead.

The soft rush of water came into my hearing perception. I yawned, stretching out my arms into the air before I actually looked at them. Like usual, every time my eyes landed on them, I got a jolt of surprise, as it had been since my death. Before, my skin had been creamy pale, slightly colored by the blood underneath my skin. Now, it was as white as a piece of paper, without any kind of coloring. I looked almost like a drawing instead of an actual person, for fear that I actually was a walking corpse, but don't those things turn blue? I was literally colorless. The big blue vein on the back of my hand was no longer visible from its previous sights, nor was the blotchy redness of one's palms when resting on the grass. The imprints of the blades didn't make indents anymore. It was still a big _Scooby-Doo _mystery how I was like this, but Twinkies said it just made me look more normal in the Underworld because I looked less human.

_Won_derfuk. And yeah, you read that right. There _is _a "K" in that. Kind of like wonder-fuck, just lack of the "C." This was wonderfully fucked up.

The red tattoo on the back of my right hand stared back at me creepily. It stalked me, attached to my hand at some random point-of-view that freaked me out when I looked at it. Twinkies had the same thing on the back of his, only his was a lot more "talkative" than mine was. Having a conversation with _myself_ was one thing; having a conversation with my _hand _was another. He said he wasn't too bright on where it came from or why I had it. (He was such a big help!) He said that his came from being the "Ultimate Spinjitzu Master" or something like that, but I didn't think I was a Spinjitzu master. I didn't even know what that was.

That was why I'd stolen a pair of work gloves from some dude when he wasn't looking. I hated it. I had tried to scrape it off, rub it off, use water to wash it off, even scrubbed it against the pale white grass underneath my feet as though it would rub off the red ink into the leafy canvas. However, my chances of removing my spontaneous tattoo were improbable. I had to deal with what Twinkies called "the Eye" like it was a part of me.

My nap—since the sun never went down, I couldn't really call it a _midnight's rest—_had been long and much appreciated. Yesterday, we'd walked from one town across a maleficent field of corny looking "flowers," only to spear through a grove of blossoming trees with poisonous acid dripping out the bark like maple syrup. Twinkies was intent on finding a certain _something, _but I don't think he knew what he was looking for. He said his Eye told him where to go. I had told him that he was stupid for listening to a talking tattoo.

Don't get me wrong, Twinkies is great company. It's just…He's not the same. Before, he'd been a determined, but emotionless, version of himself. His eyes had been blue. That much I remembered from the time before I…died. My memories of that part were hazy, like I wasn't living it correctly or something. He had this expression on his face all the time, something I think was extremely involuntary because he didn't know he was doing it. He looked like he was concentrating hard, like he was thinking about something. A man on a mission. I hadn't ever actually met Lloyd Garmadon before he'd "flipped the switch." He explained it to me as turning off the option to having emotions inside because of all the trauma he had experienced within the couple of months it had taken him to get bitten by a dark spider and then witness the third death of one of his friends, my older brother, Cole. It freaked me out to think that he let go of everything so easily. But I think that somehow, he got those emotions back during the time of my death. I just wasn't sure how.

The way he actually expressed emotion wasn't the only way he'd changed, though. Before, his eyes had been blue. A pretty blue. A nice blue. Now…they were tinted with red. They still had the main cobalt hue to them, but now it was mixed with this deep, bloody shade of crimson that pierced into me. He wasn't as nice as he was before. He was bitter, save for the muse that it seemed like he was _conflicted _with being bitter. I could almost sense that Twinkies wasn't happy about his unprompted mood swings. He was struggling to maintain a positive viewpoint, yet something was altering his ability to stay happy. He wasn't the same.

This sounds crazy, but I didn't want him to change. I wanted him to stay who he had been before, even if that was emotionless; it meant to me that he was at least _normal_. The red in his eyes he had yet to explain, the tint in his personality in need of spoken word. He was ashamed of what he was becoming and was far from admitting it.

I felt like it was my duty to keep him grounded.

Yeah. I know. Sounds weird, right? But I really did. I felt like that was my _purpose. _Like that was all I had come back for was to make sure he was okay. And that is—pardon my choice of words—completely _oso. _I am by no means a caregiver, or a suck-up, or a Mama Bear. You wanna do what you wanna do? Knock yourself out, I don't care what happens to you. Am I self centered? A lot of people have said that, and maybe it's true. I have only ever focused on _survival _as my key instinct. I would have, before I met Twinkies, gladly killed you in order to make sure that I stayed grounded another day on earth, as opposed to floating up into heaven or coming back down here into hell. I've never wanted to take care of other people before.

But I honestly, creepily, strangely, faultily, there-must-be-some-mistake-ily wanted to take care of Lloyd Garmadon and make sure he made it out of here alive.

And I had no clue why.

My outstretched hands fell onto my flat belly. I looked down at the material covering me, only to find out that it was the flowing white robe that Twinkies had gotten from the _baka _prince. It had become less of a pure color and more of one that had seen the end of its days, more ivory than pallid anymore. He didn't wear it anymore, instead resorting to the clothes I kept managing to snatch from carts without being noticed. Yesterday, I'd stolen him a new outfit to wear. (I tried to keep the robberies consistent because wearing the same thing over and over, in my mind, was nasty.) He ended up earning himself a pair of poufy, almost-Arabian-but-cooler pair of black pants, tucked into a pair of boots, matched with a white sleeveless shirt. It was a good thing to have, too, because of the sinister heat. I liked the silk of his robe, so I had kept it and used it for warmth. I got cold kind of really easy.

Since we were living like homeless people and stole stuff rather than earned it, I stuffed my diminutive amount of belongings into a minotaur-skin backpack every time Twinkies wanted to get a move on. That's where I kept his robe, which I washed in public fountains or rivers. I stuffed inside food, my few pairs of clothes, and the grimy work gloves that covered my hands perfectly. It was a nice little way to transport my things.

This morning, I sat upwards, the robe falling away from my body with the heave of my weight into a sitting position. The sun was beautifully refreshing on my skin. The previous night came flooding back to me, and my cheeks would've turned beet red if there was a chance that could happen anymore. (My circulation was acting funny—I couldn't blush anymore, to my happiness.)

"_I can take the lookout shift," Lloyd had said softly. "You can go to sleep."_

"_Why?" I'd demanded stubbornly. He was always staying awake at night. It made me instinctively suspicious that he was doing something he shouldn't be. "Don't think I can handle it?" _

"_Just trying to be chivalrous," Lloyd leaned against the dark oak of the tree. The blossoms had turned pinkish orange with the falter of the sun into the horizon. The shadows of their beauty were casted oddly with the angle. "I figured the girl wants to gather beauty sleep while the guy stares at the trees all the time."_

"_That's more like _sexist_," I'd argued. Crossing my hands over my chest, I waited for him to raise a blonde eyebrow before moving on. "Do I look like someone who gives a flying falafel about beauty sleep? Let _me _do it."_

_Lloyd had sank around our homemade fire, his legs bent, elbows resting on his knees with his hands clasped between them. "Alright. Knock yourself out and take the shift."_

I had tried to stay awake, but an hour later, with the suns still dangling low in the horizon, I had felt beaten. Lloyd had been curled gently into rest beside the fire. I almost had envied how he was resting, but then took to staring at the trees, like Lloyd did, wondering how he lasted the majority of the time I napped. I had strived to stay awake until I'd felt my lids slowly closing, and the soft, gentle touch of someone's hands coaxing me onto the ground. Subconsciously, I'd known it was Lloyd's tender, gentle hands, wrapping around me his robe to keep my body temperature from decreasing, as it did now when I fell asleep, but at the time I had believed it was Cole. Cole, being the brother he always was, looking out for me. I'd wanted to open my eyes and look at him and tell him about how much I missed him, but sleep had suffocated those hopes.

I'd proved that I was really bad at fighting sleep. It was embarrassing. I almost didn't want to face Lloyd knowing that he was right and I wasn't.

I spotted him, soaked in daylight, doing something that I caught him usually doing in the mornings. His hands, wrapped around a thick branch of a tree beside me, popped veins visibly out his wrists as he yanked himself off the ground and into the air. His natural resources were his gymnasium now. He used his environment to his advantage to gain more and more physical strength.

The pull-ups looked difficult. I kicked off his robe with the fire smoldering beside me. Lloyd barely paused his workout, shirtless and sweating, to say, "Morning, sleepyhead."

I stuck out my tongue playfully, running a hand through my thin black hair. I caught a half grin on his face. I busied myself with digging through my backpack while trying to avoid looking at him. It was extremely hard to admit, but he was becoming well-cut with the exercising he was doing. I hated it when he ripped off his shirt while doing them because it made my life _that much harder. _Do you _know _how difficult it is not to gawk at him? It would go straight to his head if he knew I would look at him when he was shirtless.

I treated him like I did Cole a lot. I don't know why, but I acted like he was my brother, playfully throwing comments back and forth with him, cracking jokes. We teased each other but also watched out for each other. Was I trying to use him as a replacement for the brother I had lost?

I shook my head, digging through my pack. No. Nobody could replace Cole. Not even Twinkies.

I found myself a pair of clothes to wear: a ripped up dress. Women apparently couldn't wear pants in this realm (yay…_not) _so I had completely demolished this one into a short-sleeved, short skirted outfit. It was too hot to be wearing longer sleeves with a thick train. I embraced the tan material with a forlorn sniffle. I missed my favorite pair of sweatpants and T-shirts with stupid advertisements on them.

Lloyd had parked us next to a river yesterday. I looked to it, masked between trees. Thankfully, they manufactured soap bars in this era, which I (again) had stolen from a selling card with swiftness. I was faster than I had been before—and that was saying a lot. Although my movements before were jagged, sketchy, but _really _fast, they were now fluidic and graceful. I was able to yank stuff off carts and be gone before anyone saw me. I was really going to run with that ability.

I grabbed a bar, a gnarly color of grey but delicious smelling, and decided I was going to bathe. Picking up my pack, I raised a dark brow at Lloyd. He paused his pull ups to dangle in the air, waiting for me with a strange look on his face that made it hard for me to hold a straight expression. I snorted and rose to my feet, slinging the pack over my shoulder. Sometimes he was capable of making me have an instant good mood. The boy dropped from the tree to land neatly on his feet, harvesting a crooked smile. "I'm going over in this here river," I called over my shoulder, marching through the thin patch of forest dividing our camp from the river. "If you play peeping tom, I'm going to drop kick you into next week."

I heard him laugh. "I'll keep that in mind."

I tried not to consider how scary it would be if I actually _did _catch Lloyd peeping on me. I was pretty sure that I would do as I promised, but in the end, would it bother me? I wasn't someone who was self-conscious about my body, unlike the majority of my class of teenage girls. I actually didn't care much for how I was perceived in the eye of the beholder, especially when it came to guys. I hadn't actually ever thought about it before.

And I wanted to slap myself for it. _Get a grip, Seiko! _I told myself angrily. _What are you doing, thinking about that? Did dying mess with your head or what? _I stumbled through the underbrush, scraping my tender white feet on its excess branches. I felt one of the scrapes dig deep enough to bleed, and winced.

The river's color was a deep blue, comforting enough to want to slip into. I had always found peace in the water for some strange reason. I liked being in it, liked being surrounded by it. When I was little, I always begged Cole to take me to the community pool so that I could at least be with the water for a little while. Looking at the otherworldly water, I knew that I was safe, able to be safely consumed by it. I was always the best one at holding my breath for a long amount of time. Checking over my shoulder to make sure Twinkies wasn't watching, I swiftly ripped off my overclothes and dove into the water without waiting for another prompt.

The cool liquid covered me completely when I went under. It was refreshing. I would've swallowed gulps of it if it wouldn't have killed me to do so. I pulled my arms through the ordinary restraint of the water's current, feeling my insides immediately calm. It had been a very long time since I had ever had the proper option to admire my favorite element of nature. I pulled myself through the catch with a smile on my face. What lies underneath the surface was distorted by the fragmented water, turning the scene below into a murky, lighted arena. I watched small fish twirl through the weeds beneath my feet, feeling their gentle fins tickle my toes. I grinned when a strange red one with large eyes swam past.

My lungs could've taken the beating forever, but I decided I couldn't lollygag. My head broke the surface, bringing me out of the beauty and into reality, an ugly change if you ask me. I spotted, between the cracks of the trees, Lloyd kicking through the ashes of our fire while freezing the remaining flames with his element of ice. I marveled at it for a brief moment. _I wanna be able to do that, _I thought, swimming closer to the shore so I could grab my soap as well as watch him a little more. The muscles of his stomach had become more prominent with today's workout. Oblivious, Lloyd cracked his knuckles, staring at the blackened wood without even knowing _he _was being stared at. His golden hair made a halo around his soft face. Didn't he know how attractive he looked?

I shook my head. I wanted to smack myself across the face. I was doing it again.

I reached forward to snatch my soap off the top of my pack. _No more, _I pledged. _No more staring at Lloyd. _Glob, that was gonna be hard…_No, no it will not be. You're being ridiculous. Knock it off, you stupid psychotic weirdo. _Baka! _You need to get a grip. What's the big deal, anyway? It's not like you're even—_

I felt icy hands clasp around my ankle. With a shrill scream, I barely saw Lloyd's head snap towards me when I experienced them yanking me under, submerging my head beneath the surface. The sound of the world around me faded into a dull roar when the water flew over my head. Whatever it was that had me in a tight, strangling grip, pulling me further and further beneath the water. I didn't know rivers ran so deep. I glanced underneath, my cheeks expanded with my breath of air, looking for the thing that had me in its hands. I could feel the scaly fingers wrapped around my ankle.

The creature's hands looked like scaly snake hands, topped with black claws, coiled around my leg. The sharp tips dug into my skin hard enough to cause little red tendrils of blood to run into the water, looking like smoke off a candle. It felt like the creature was _working _something into my skin with repeated scratching. _What is it doing? _Fear caught in my throat. Whatever it was, it was wrapped in the safety of the weeds, barely visible except for the hands that dragged me under. My arms scrabbled through the water as I tried to fight back, kicking my feet and dragging myself up. It only worsened my situation to be pulled further down. The murky waters were looking less and less inviting as I grabbed at the water like it would save my life, but whatever it was seemed intent on killing me today. I looked downwards again to find myself staring into the dark underbrush of the weeds, only this time, I saw a pair of vicious green eyes staring back. Familiar green eyes.

I screamed underneath the water. The air I had was gone, leaving my lungs empty, a terrible move right about now. I pawed at the water again. _I can't get up! _I thought, heart pounding, head becoming lighter and lighter. I looked back down. The eyes stared back.

I waved my hand as if to deflect their gaze. In response, there was a strange sweep in the current that changed. It seemed like with my movement came an angry, black wave of shadows, smacking into the hands. The grip slightly loosened. And underneath the surface, I heard a shrill wail of agony.

I froze. Had _I _done that?

I waved my hand again, feebly this time, but I saw the shadows roll off my swift movements in torpedoes downwards. The creature screamed, muffled, once again, scaring me half to death, but the grip was far from as strong as it had been before. Determined, I kicked with all my remaining might to wrench off the sunken-in claws from my flesh.

A tendril of blue lightning shot from beside me. I jumped, afraid that I'd be hit with it, but instead it selectively attacked the arm of the creature. The attack jolted it from letting me go. I glanced up to see Lloyd, swimming down towards me, his hair circling him in a _real _golden halo now. His arm wrapped around my waist as he used a final element-based attack to fend off the clawed, scaly offender. His hands brushed tenderly at my bare waist—thank _God _I wasn't completely naked!—before he yanked me up with a propelling force that stole away time by shooting us through the water. I held onto him, staring in fear and shock down at the foggy waters searching for some kind of evidence that the creature who had grabbed me was still there, but whatever it was had retreated back into the weeds. I reeled from the fact that I had done something in those waters. I had _done _something.

Whatever I had done was significantly powerful. The only action I'd performed was waving my hand, but somehow, that creature had gotten hurt. I'd made _shadows _crawl through the water and _hit _it. How was that possible?

My grip on Lloyd tightened, even after he'd broken the surface of the water and pulled me towards the shore. I found that my whole body was shaking with cold, fear, disbelief, and six-thousand other thought-induced emotions. Lloyd dragged me onto the shore, pressing me against the white grass. I stared at the sky. My breathing turned into pants, and I realized that I needed to breathe in every ounce of air I could get. I reached for his offering of the white robe as a cover up, which I thankfully snatched. Shoving my arms into the sleeves, I tied it around my waist, absolutely aware that Lloyd had just seen me practically naked. I was _so glad _I couldn't blush.

"What _was _that, Seiko?" He asked, pushing his wet hair out of his face. His blue-red eyes were wide. I stared at him. Instead of answering, I felt my stampeding heart start to slow, and shoved my face into my hands.

"Are you okay?" He asked softly. I nodded.

"I just…need a second," I said slowly. I really did. Wrapping my head around this was extremely hard. I rubbed the heels of my hands into my eyes. "Did you see that?" I asked suddenly. "Did you see what I did?"

I snapped my head up to weigh his reaction, but Lloyd looked confused. "No," he answered deliberately. "What did you do?"

How do you explain to someone that you just manipulated shadows into attacking something that attacked you?

I scrubbed my eyes as if to rub away the shock. I had to have imagined it. There was no possible way that I had done anything to that creature. Lloyd had electrocuted it; that was all. But the lie seemed hollow and empty. Forcing myself to believe that I hadn't done anything was more difficult than it usually was.

"Geezus," gasped Lloyd. I raised my head. "Look at your leg!" He pointed, but instantly grabbed it to pull it into his lap. I finally noticed the prickly sting of the holes that had been created by the monster's claws, the soft trickle of warm blood staining my colorless skin. Inhaling sharply through my teeth, I reached forward to prod the wound with my hand, but stopped.

Lloyd saw it too. He looked into my eyes for a brief glance before both of our gazes were glued back to the message of blood written across my calf's skin, pouring out the engraving of what the fiend's claws had printed:

_I WILL RETURN FOR YOU_

* * *

**Please review! **

**oh, and deviantart has been updated with "Of Yin & Yang"s COVER! MWAHAHAHAAHAH please go look. :3 Thanks for reading! **


	4. Chapter 4

**FOR ALEXIS the reviewer****!: **Well, let's see if I can answer a coupla questions of yours ;). First of all, Seiko calls Lloyd "Goldy Locks," but calling him "Blondie," would be very typical in her mind. She's someone who likes to jump out of the circle and come up with completely random nicknames that stick. "Twinkies" is just something that she would've randomly come up with, then liked because it made Lloyd sound all pudgy and soft. (Which he's not.) Although "Twinkies" is her prominent nickname to use for him, she does and will call him a lot more nicknames, aside from "Cupcakes" and "Goldy Locks." The fonder she grows to a person, the more nicknames they catch!

**ALEXIS STILL**! X3: I didn't describe the creature underneath the surface because that's all the readers have ever seen of the creature before. *cough cough secret secrethint hint* So its appearance will be revealed later on in the story, but for now, no reader of NfaN has ever known what the creature looks like besides the eyeballs and arms.

**CHAPTER FOUR:  
**NO LONGER MYSELF  
~_Yang~_

"_How many more skin-tattoos am I gonna get?!" _Seiko cried, throwing up her pale arms in defeat. With her calf in my lap, pressed against my abdomen, heat from my body seeped into her own toneless skin through the connected spots. I could barely tear my eyes away from the message scrawled across her skin. The cut oozed red blood onto her dampened skin, and when the two liquids collided, they created a watery, red-based constituent that trickled down her ankle. Her big, blue eyes looked agitated to hide the sparkle of worry I deciphered beneath her dark eyelashes. "I mean, _seriously. _While we're at it, maybe we should doodle the Pillsbury Doughboy onto my forehead."

I chuckled, swiping away traces of the blood with my thumb. I smeared the message, but even it retaliated quickly. Seiko was right. It would leave a faint pink scar—eventually fading into white—that would most likely last her lifetime. I reached for her pack to see if I could find a subsequent substitute—try saying _that _five times fast—for gauze.

Seiko eyed me, but let me dig through her stuff. Meanwhile, I purged into all possibilities of what that message could mean. I supposed it was like the school bully throwing threats out, particularly threats that were never fulfilled, but a quick scan with my Eye told me that pegging my hope on that one wouldn't suffice. "I will return for you"? What did that even translate to? Was the "you" implying specifically Seiko, or was it a wide-range referral to me, too? If the Eye had shoulders, it would've shrugged them. It didn't know any more than we did, which I found was unusual to my know-it-all mark. I looked up at Seiko.

The girl groaned and held out her hand. "Gimme," she commanded. I tossed her the pack, and she resumed my digging for me. I detected the slightest of winces on her face from the sting of the engraving.

"Does it hurt?" I asked, pressing the heel of my right hand into the _I will ret_ part of the deal. Seiko flicked a look up at me.

"No, Twinkies, I believe I can fly," she growled. She grabbed ahold of something within her bag, then tossed aside the minotaur-skinned knapsack, holding out a large shirt in front of her. Without warning, she ripped the men's shirt with her bare hands, tearing out slices of it to pass on to me. I started to wrap the tourniquet around her smooth calf.

While I worked to hide the message that sent shivers crawling up my spine, I asked, "Did you see what it looked like?"

Seiko leaned forward to watch me, shaking her dark head. "No," she responded in a disappointed tone. She handed me another strip. "Except the green eyes."

"I saw that too," I answered. I repositioned her leg so I could finish the rest of the _return for you _that I hadn't gotten. My Eye flickered its mental tongue at me like a snake. _Creatures of the night will hunt you, _it hissed. I blinked. Huh. That was very typically _vague. _"Good to know," I grumbled. Seiko raised a dark eyebrow at me but had no snarky comments to add.

"So what does it mean?" Seiko asked, pointing. "Other than the fact that whatever it was wants to come after us."

"Or you," I added, and rubbed her tender ankle absentmindedly. Seiko blinked in surprise at my act of randomness, but I could feel her muscles relax underneath her skin as I kneaded away the knots. "Whatever it is, it obviously has set its sights, and I have this sinking feeling that we might have to lay lower than we already are."

Seiko cocked her head. I breathed in the sight of her ice-white skin shade contrasting her ebony hair and red lips. She was definitely different, but I don't think she'd seen a mirror just yet. She would _flip _when she saw how completely…different she looked. And for what reason? The Eye never told.

"Why? You could ninja-kick it into my next birthday," she reasoned, and looked down at the darkness of blood seeping into the gray shirt's slips. Her eyes quickly averted.

"I can't just 'ninja-kick' it into some other day," I replied. "I don't even know what I'm up against. But it's nice to know that you think I could." I probably could've, but only if I understood my opponent. If I didn't, I'd be blindly darting into the middle of a battle I may not be able to finish. I had to be aware of weaknesses and strong points before I dared throw a punch. Or, in Seiko's case, a ninja-kick.

"Then you can teach me, and then _I _could ninja-kick it into my next birthday," Seiko said, leaning forward to peek at the makeshift gauze. I looked at the seep of her wet skin through the layer of the silk sticking to her small shoulders, beginning to thin as it became damp. My long white robe, falling down to her ankles, was pulled tightly with the rope around her waist, plunging the relaxed neckline downwards to a great amount. I yanked my eyes away with a hard redden of my cheeks.

"I don't think that would be wise," I answered, still looking at her leg until my face cooled off. _Geez, Lloyd, _I thought, _get a grip. _"We don't know what we're dealing with."

"Don't think I could?" she challenged. I glanced up at her from beneath my lashes. She liked to challenge me, to push me, I found. Seiko liked to have people know she could do pretty much anything a guy could do—that much was absolutely clear. The avant-garde style of percussion she relayed to me was soaked with her determination to do whatever a boy could, save for a few things there was no way she _could _do. I found her desire to make that clear amusing, but I humored it. I remembered when I was younger constantly wanting to show the Ninja that I could help. I could be useful. I could help them steal things. I was capable. Everyone just sort of patted my head and said, "Silly Lloyd!" before running off to save the day. It was irritating, a fist-clencher, a teeth-gritter. The difference, though, between Seiko and I was that even if I told her no, she would try anyway. Her determination came from an endless bucket and could either seriously irritate or maim someone if used correctly.

I admired her indomitable self-preservation.

Doing unto Seiko as the Ninja had done unto me would've made me just as bad as them. I shook my head. "No, believe me, I think you could knock him into next century," I said, "but this is serious. This—thing—is after either all or one of us."

"Don't you think it was bluffing?"

"I know _I _wouldn't be bluffing if I went as far as to practically drown a girl and then write in her skin."

Seiko stuck out her lip. "Great. So we're being hunted, then, by the Loch Ness Monster. I think we should find a telephone and call up the Ghost Busters. Maybe they would know what to do."

"Seiko, the Ghost Busters don't deal with the Loch Ness Monster. They deal with ghosts." I rubbed my chin. She watched the movement with pinpoint eyes. It was just a thought, but maybe it would work. As the lights went on inside my head, I looked at the water. There would be plenty more monsters out there that would be ready to attack. But would Seiko have enough preparation in her belt to be able to fend them off? Could I keep her safe while trying to keep _myself _safe?

"I have an idea," I said slowly, calculating my words. Seiko perked up.

"Did it hurt?" she asked. I glared at her while she suppressed a smile.

"There are plenty more monsters out there that aren't going to stop and let you run free," I said. "Maybe, since we don't really have anything else to do, I could teach you a few moves."

"Really?!" Seiko sat up straight, her eyes wide with disbelief. "You'd teach me?"

Her response shocked me. I shrugged. "Yeah. If you're up for the challenge," I raised an eyebrow. Taunting her like a bull, I knew that maybe it wasn't the _greatest _of strategies, but I wanted to see what she would do. She gave me a wicked half smirk that made her look dangerously alluring. It made me _want _to fight her, to test out what skills she currently had, but then I remembered that she was injured. That was a _huge _disappointment. I looked down at her leg.

Seiko caught my train of thought. Her gaze followed mine. "Oh, I'll survive. Come on, Lloyd, _please?" _She poked my shoulder. I looked into her light blue eyes, searching the pleading there. I didn't actually think it was a big deal, but the look she was giving me spoke miles. She _wanted _to. "I'm no baby. I'll survive a little scrape."

I looked closer into her eyes. There was a story beneath them, I found, and I wanted to read deeper into it, but she was only showing me the first two pages. I wanted to read the rest. I looked down at her leg. Debating whether or not I should teach her, I moved her leg off of mine, raising myself into a stand. I looked down at her childish wonder. "Can you stand?" I asked.

Seiko found her footing, pulling herself to her feet. "See? Piece of cake," she bragged, but wobbled. I smirked.

"I guess I can show you basic stuff," I decided. Seiko squeaked when a smile broke out on her face. She really was excited to be taught ninja moves, more emotion than I thought the idea would earn. "Get dressed and meet me back in the camp. We can start then."

Seiko nodded enthusiastically. With a parting glance at her leg, I wandered back into the woods, kicking through the underbrush to make my way back. Her reaction startled me. I thought perhaps she'd blow it off and tell me that it "wasn't gonna happen" or some very Seiko-like comment, but she'd caught me off guard. I hadn't anticipated that she would beg for the opportunity, either, except the more time I spent with her, the more times she surprised me.

Seiko wasn't like anybody I'd ever met before. She was extremely unique in her own strange way. Aside from the fact that I hadn't ever really been referred to as "Twinkies" before, she made me smile when it felt like I hadn't in a long time. I had lost so much, too much to be able to smile for. I had lost my best friend, my brothers, my dad, my uncle…Now I was stuck in hell, no way out, no sense of right or wrong, my emotions slowly returning to me from the dumbstruck awe that slapped them away in the first place. Kai's face flashed in my mind, and I found it hard to breathe for one awful moment. There was a hole that someone had punched in my chest, where my heart used to be. I grabbed onto a tree for support. _Love you, kiddo. _The wind fluttered through the trees. It left an echo in my ears, floating through this hole in my heart, reminding me that it was gone. I let out a strangled gasp. _We'll always be here for you, even if you can't see us. _It didn't _feel _like they were here. I put my hand to my flat, bare stomach, feeling this awful choke in my throat that disabled me from the core of my insides. _And know, in your heart, that I love you. And that is why I have to let you go. _I pressed my forehead into the bark of the dead tree. The hollow in my chest ached at the rims.

I didn't even know if Jay was alive. I didn't know how the world sufficed without the Green Ninja. I didn't know if my dad had fallen into this squash onto the temple floor. I didn't know if Nya or Rikku or Caroline went back for Cole's body. I didn't know if the Bounty made it out of the cemetery or not. I didn't know if the Devourer had destroyed Ninjago City yet. I didn't know if Eloquim had found the Key yet. All these things I didn't know, but desperately wanted to. I wanted out of this hell. I wanted to go home. I wanted, wanted, wanted, but would never, never, ever get. I wouldn't be able to leave without the Gate being opened—and by the looks of it, that time could soon come.

I felt the burn of tears in my eyes but pushed them back. I couldn't cry. Not now, not with Seiko just a few steps away. I pushed myself into a stand, forcing myself to hold the pieces together. I was Lloyd Garmadon. Ninja recover, right? I forced myself into a walk further towards the camp. I would survive. Everyone had stress. Life was easily livable. A ninja _never _admits defeat.

Oh, Kai. Geezus, I was an idiot. I stumbled into the clearing with my head dizzy and the hole in my chest on fire. This, if anything, would kill me someday. I knelt down towards my own pack to grab myself a neater pair of clothes. I would survive. I'd be fine. There was no more sadness for me. I could do this. After a while of repeating it over and over in my head, I found myself starting to believe it.

And then the darkness came.

And I began to change.

…

—_Yin—_

"Hey, Twinkies!" I called, picking up my footing while using a piece of string to tie my hair away from my face. Selectively leaving out my bangs (I wouldn't be able to function if they weren't hanging over my eye) I pressed my feet into the dirty ground, actually admiring the feel of grass and dirt, even if both were from some freakishly weird other dimension. The forest was deep, and dark, but I had sight of our camp in the distance. I shoved aside brambles in order to reach my destination.

I found him leaning against the tree he'd been using as a workout station this morning. He had different clothes on, a pair of let black pants with a jet black shirt. I could've snorted. Why would he be wearing such dark clothes with _two suns _in the sky? He was going to get sweaty awfully fast. I raised an eyebrow at him, but he wasn't looking at me; he was examining his nails.

"Going for the bad boy streak, are you, Twinks?" I asked, crossing my arms over my flat chest. He smirked without bothering to make eye contact.

"Sure, baby," he said, his scratchy voice covering an edge. "If that's what you want."

At first, I thought he was kidding. I snorted, waiting for that responding smile, but something told me he was completely serious. I stared at the bowed eyelids that covered the eyes looking at the nails distracting him with my spirits twisting into a confused muffle. I stepped closer. "What's with you?" I asked.

Lloyd finally looked at me, and his daredevil's smirk broadened. I felt chills creep up my spine with the loud gasp breathing out my throat. His gaze sucked onto me like starteeth to a ship. I stepped back one pace to give a wider distance between us, even though that egged him on. Something was definitely wrong with him; he was _not _the same dude I had met before. It seemed like he couldn't decide what team he was on.

Lloyd's eyes had no blue left. They were pure blood red, failing to capture the Lloyd I had first met. His head cocked to the side as he lifted himself off of the tree, taking steps towards me that I equaled with steps backwards. Some strange voice in my head was telling me there was _danger, danger _and it wasn't even _my _voice. I slipped backward until I felt my back come to sorts with a tree. My heart had begun to pound in my ears.

"What's the matter?" Lloyd asked, red eyes beady. He _knew _what he was doing. God, he was _evil. _Oh, my God. I scrabbled backwards, groping for a way out, but it seemed like I was trapped. I whirled to dart back through the trees, providing myself an escape, but Lloyd was faster. Somehow, he'd cleared the space between us, grabbing onto my wrist and yanking me backwards. I let out a frightened scream. Lloyd pulled me against him, his front pressing against my back, and constricting me to my position with his arm hooked around me. I wrestled my body away from him, frustratingly screaming, kicking him like a child would when encountered by a stranger. What was the _matter _with him? This couldn't be Lloyd. Something happened to him. Something _bad. _

I wriggled, but Lloyd pinned both my wrists against my shoulders, bringing his lips to my ear. "Don't _fight _me," he whispered.

I blew hair out my face. "Get. _AWAY!" _I yelled, struggling. Lloyd clucked his tongue.

"Sorry, sweetheart," he said, "but I can't let you go just yet."

"What's your _problem?!" _I screamed, a shrill cry. My screams echoed off the dead limbs around me, repelling back towards me without bothering to ascend for help. I would've punched my screams if they were actual entities. But, as they weren't, it forced me to have to deal with this one on my own. A swift twist and a kick allowed me to whirl in Lloyd's arms, then swipe my leg into the air to kick him in the chest. Except, he caught my ankle and, with a pretentiously creepy grin, pulled. I screamed as I was flung to the side. My body collided harshly with the ground underneath me, forcing out a cry. Naturally, I jumped to my feet to prepare a stunning attack, but there was something that clogged the pipeway to automatic defense. Lloyd, too, froze in his place with a hunk of lightning sparking in his hands.

"_Stop!" _yelled a voice. Our heads snapped to the side at the noise of leaves rustling and twigs horrifically snapping. "_Don't do it!" _

Bursting into the clearing, heralded by the suffocating tint of blackened sludge, was none other than the respectfully infamous father of Twinkies: Lord Garmadon.

* * *

**A/N PLZ READ: **Just so you guys know, my updates may be a little scattered because I'm going to be juggling Driver's Ed, studying, homework, AND finishing up my original book series. -.- Even this chapter, to me, didn't seem like my best work. Maybe I'll redo it.

Anyways. Please review, and go have a wonderful day/night! Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER FIVE:  
**LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON  
~Yang~

_Garmadon stepped into the clearing. _

I looked over with surprise, but found my face easily slipping into a smirk. Normally with these circumstances I might've been caught off guard, especially when under the impression that I hadn't heard him coming initially. My hearing hasn't always been so impaired, but I've not always been able to hear everything, though now I have an unfair advantage over everyone else. Everyone else, maybe, except that pretty girl standing across from me, who was looking at the man—my father—with fear in her eyes. What was there to be scared of? His attempt at creating a false black layer of skin failed miserably, sticking in chunks rather than smooth coating, his hair pulled away from his face in a windblown image with the heavy use of black oil. His eyes weren't even red. He looked around with chocolate eyes, using them to clear the space between me and Seiko in stable flicks. He slowly stepped into the clearing with his long arms spread away from his body as if to shove the two of us away from each other. His bare feet crunched on the white grass, dirtied by soot and dried blood.

He looked relieved, and scared, all at once. "Hey, Dad," I said casually, sticking my hands in my pockets. The anxiety that I had been feeling seconds earlier was gone. It was replaced with a cool, easygoing swig of air that flew through me with every breath intake I took. I felt like there was nothing to worry about, no asses to save, no dead friends to mourn. Well, there were still those matters, technically, but I honestly didn't care much. I could look at Seiko and think nothing of her appearance, whereas before I thought of her as a new friend and student to teach. I could look at my random father, but not feel the admiration or the love that came before. I just didn't care.

And it was freaking _awesome._

Seiko glanced at me in surprise, her bright blue eyes shooting me daggers that I could've caught if they were real. I threw a wink at her.

It made her bristle visibly. Garmadon looked at me with big, white eyes that looked peculiar in comparison to his black, black skin. Black lips moved to reveal a pink tongue within his mouth. "L-Lloyd?" He breathed softly, unable to speak louder than a shunned whisper. I raised a brow at him to show the acknowledgement. "W-what happened to your eyes?"

"Oh," I said, rolling my shoulders. They blissfully popped. I told him the news like I was explaining some really lame math problem, without any kind of emotion, although I knew they were dulling inside of me. "I got stabbed with Devourer's venom." When I spoke, it sounded as easy as saying, _I left the cat outside. _It had nothing beyond it but a story that I didn't feel to repeat.

My dad's reaction weighted. The emotions crawled over his skin, shooting out his eyes worse than strobe lights, flashing instantaneously with every new realization. Simple sentence, big meaning, I suppose. I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets, feeling the sun's stunned rays plead into my back, yet I could hardly feel the omission of the heat. My father's lips parted in attempt of verbal comprehension. This wasn't really far from the reaction I expected, save I didn't imagine the airheaded bunny-girl over there to understand what a Devourer was. She probably thought it was some kind of chocolate cake or something.

Yet somehow, she was the first to react with words. Surprise, surprise.

"THE _DEVOURER?!" _She cried, arms flying into the air. Her eyes looked wide and betrayed by lack of confession about my brand-new issue. I looked at her coolly. "Are you _serious?!" _

"No, I'm joking."

"Why didn't you _say _anything?!" She yelled. Seiko crossed the distance between us in a graceful zip of speed. Her black hair fluttered from her face, revealing her long, pale white neck. I shamelessly looked at her flawless skin with a feeling in the pit of my stomach. More of an ebb than a real feeling, but it was definitely there, bugging me.

I glanced into her eyes. "Did you really think _I _was going to tell _you? _A girl?"

Seiko's eyes narrowed. "What's wrong with being a girl?" she challenged, channeling her inner feminist. I tilted my chin.

"Nothing," I said levelly, eyes roving down her slender figure. She was fuming. "It's just think girls are more useful in alone-time that I would use for sex over talking about my feelings."

And you know what? When my father looked at me with his big eyes huge and his mouth agape, yet stern, I didn't give a crap. "L-Lloyd!" He coughed out, unable to contain his shock. "That's _enough! _Don't be so rude!" Honestly, I was dropping bombs all over him to where he possibly could be scouring a mine field. No one had heard me utter such inappropriate—yet completely true—words before. Geez, Kai must've been rolling over in his unmarked grave at this precise instant.

Seiko took a second to process it. When she did, her hand reached out, quicker than I could've perceived, and slapped me hard across the cheek.

The sting echoed with the rasp of the high-pitched sound coming from impact. I was suddenly facing the trees, watching them loom over us in dead glory. A throb ached in my cheek. I figured this was perhaps the best way to greet your father back into your life. Having him witness an annoying—yet hot—girl smack you because you're being vulgar is always the way to win him back. I shook off the sting with a smirk. I turned to her.

"Thanks, babe," I winked. You're probably reading this believing I really have gone off the deep end. Sweet, innocent little Lloyd Garmadon is being uncouth and asshole-ish, who previously believed girls had Cooties and were gross and annoying. But I'm _tired _of being pushed around. No evil demon will get the best of me anymore, thinking that killing my friends will win them an A+. No, it doesn't work this way anymore. I'm not going to show mercy, not to anyone. Because really, who can I trust?

Maybe this Devourer's venom is the best thing that will ever happen to me.

"Why, _you—!" _Seiko threw herself at me, but Dad slipped between us, grabbing her before she could tackle me. I wouldn't have minded—she was too tiny and weak to be strong enough to harm me. I had probably fifteen to twenty-five pounds over her, an easily winnable fight, if you ask me. Garmadon grabbed her wrists to stop her screaming, angry fit as I stepped away, fingers flicking back and forth at my side, itching to hold something. Seiko's wet hair fell into small strands over her face, masking her from me in an angry rage. My father looked like he had no clue who she was, but protected the both of us anyway. I rolled my eyes at the stupidity of the circumstances, and crouched beside the fire. Though I'd frozen away the last of the flame and smoke, I hit it anyway, sparking to life a new fire to melt the frozen water pooling at the bottom of the wooden teepee. Seiko shrieked at me.

I ignored her. Whatever.

Her profanities made my lids droop to half over my eyes. I could sense, using my Eye, my father's weariness. He was still processing everything. _He found you by accident, _told my mark. _He was traveling to the Noel's castle when he heard the sounds of the struggle. Luckily, you're safe now, Lloyd. _

"Pah," I chuckled beneath my breath. "He's just one more douche bag I have to deal with."

_He's your father. _

"And you're my hand," I snapped lowly. "Now shut up, or I'm cutting you off."

_You need me. _

"I'm naturally left-handed," I said. "I write with it, I fight with it—I don't need a right hand to survive, trust me. You're my subdominant one. Kind of a bad place to pop up, but whatever."

_Seiko is left handed, too. _

"Is this the face of someone who cares, or is y'all just too stupid to understand that?" I purposely wronged my grammar. I felt a mental sigh pour from my hand's imagery.

_She has a Mind's Eye as well, _it stated obviously. _Do you not feel connection? _

"Don't know, don't care."

_You should, Lloyd. This is important. _

"Are you deaf?" I snuffed the fire with ice. "Shut up." With that, I turned to look towards my father and the girl I was for-some-reason stuck with, to find and watch the show of her freak out under my lack of respect…

_—Yin—_

"Breathe," whispered Garmadon in my ear. Now, I am totally, one-hundred-two percent okay with breathing, but right then, breathing was _so _not on my top priority list. In fact, the space for the first digit had been filled with "kill Lloyd Garmadon" in red ink and black sharpie to accentuate the urgency of it. Garmy's hands wrapped around my wrists, warmly calming, but father figures freaked me out. Thanks to Lou, I had this idea that all of them were equally the same and all had some kind of determination to destroy my well-being. As it appeared, like father, like son still existed. Lloyd crouched beside the fire, playing with his elements against it, aborting it and rebirthing it in a cycle. I wanted to smack the brains out of him. How _dare _he think it was okay to say such _insolent _things about girls! There was nothing that guys could do that we couldn't, except few choice things that no honest girl would want to do anyway. Somehow, the Twinkies I had known was replaced by this monster—who I primarily thought was not Twinkies, but later somehow sensed it was—and this one was intent on _pissing me off. _It never ended well for the first idiot who irritated _this _psycho. Lloyd had just become one of them on the hit list.

I hadn't actually thought I'd hear something like that come out of his mouth. If you looked past the blood red eyes and the dicky smirk, he still had the round, childish, cute face that belonged to the _real _Twinkies. He looked like a lost puppy when he wasn't tainted by sordid facial expressions and violent misconceptions of girls' abilities. I looked up at Garmadon's brown eyes with this feeling that came with it. The father _knew _what it was like to have the Devourer's venom inside. (I actually never knew that the snake's venom could do such a thing to someone, to taint them, but hadn't expected otherwise. I knew of the destructive reptilious creature that practically demolished Ninjago City in a singular swallow.) Would this lead to a cure? Could Garmadon _help _Lloyd? To be honest, I admired Twinks for his courage, but right now, I hated him. How could he say something so completely and totally _offensive _and not react to it?

Garmadon sighed. "You must be the sister," he breathed softly.

I scowled. "Who wants ta know?" I grumbled at him, not specifically asking for a name but rather a backstory. I don't remember ever telling this dude that I was a sister.

Garmadon held tight onto my wrists, but I was scared that if he let go, I'd bolt across the clearing and smack Lloyd's face into the tree. I knew I was overreacting completely. That was how I rolled: Fly off the handle, then bedazzle someone with my stupidic charm of a lost girl. I tried with difficulty to constrain these unlawful feelings within myself. I _needed _to calm. I focused on channeling my inner peace while looking into Garmy's reassuring eyes. He looked like a father underneath the false gook clouding his skin. Maybe…maybe he could help me.

He gave me a soft smile that didn't fit the badass character he portrayed. "We spent weeks trying to locate you and my son," Garmadon explained quietly. I could see the pain of seeing what was becoming of his lost son linger underneath the sheen of wet goop over his eyes. "But I have to say, you don't look anything like the picture Cole showed us."

I felt a stab in my heart at the sound of my dead brother's name. Hanging my head, my grief could've slipped right out of me. The people in the mirror must've been closer to each other than they appeared. Why would Cole have shown Garmadon a picture of _me? _"When did he do that?" I asked dully. Garmadon stroked my wrist comfortingly.

"He told us that you'd be hard to contain," he said, capturing my attention. "He told us that if we found you, you'd certainly be scared and worried, Lloyd or no Lloyd for support." I glanced up at him, catching the wistful glance over his shoulder. "Which I suppose is no Lloyd."

"How would…" I squinted. "Were you and Cole…close?"

Understanding why Cole would ever mention the fact that I would be scared and worried before my death was difficult. I also never understood why my photograph would be passed around. He didn't usually mention me to outsiders. Confused, I watched Garmadon cock his head. "No," he answered. "Your disappearance left him frantic. He figured a photo would be needed to help find you, so he took one from your father's wallet and showed it to us. He gave great details about you. He is awfully worried about you, you know. I'm just glad I found you safe." Garmadon blinked for a long moment. We couldn't say the same for Lloyd, who we probably should've been over there scolding, but I was more interested to investigate deeper into this Cole mystery.

If I were a child, I would've tucked my legs beneath me and stared into his eyes, begging for the rest of the story, big Bambi eyes used as needed. Instead, I tipped my head to the side. "He _is _worried? Or _was? _How would he even know that I disappeared? He was—was—" I coughed. "—_staked _before I disapp…"

Garmadon shook his head sympathetically. "He isn't dead," he told me. "The magic of potion returned him."

I froze. I could never really explain to you _how freaking happy _I was when I heard it. I asked him to repeat it for me a couple of times, heart soaring into my throat, tears threatening to unveil themselves. I kept them in, because I was done crying like a wuss for the next century. Cole. My brother. Alive. More than anything, I wanted to see him, be near him, hug him and cry into his shoulder. It had been _years _since I'd seen Cole in person, without attempting to possessively kill him under the influence of Dark Lords. The last I had seen Cole, I thought I was being shipped away to the Oppenheimer, instead finding my trip trajectory averted to a darker brick road, leading me to Sunnyside over the Oppenheimer. _Sunnyside. _What a damn joke. The return of my brother left me more determined to escape hell and find my way home. I wanted to see him _so badly. _I needed him. I loved him.

I let out a cry of joy, fists metrically clenching like the fabric of his shirt really was between my fingers. I could practically smell his earthy scent, feel the warm cave of where his throat met his shoulder, his strong arms wrapping around me. I grinned at Garmadon, who smiled back, though it didn't reach his eyes. Whereas I had gained back my family, he'd lost part of his.

I looked at Twinkies. Okay, so, maybe Garmadon creeped me out still, but he'd given me the best gifts there ever could've been: Good news, and redemption. My anger still muted in my throat yet laid unconscious in words, allowing me the ability to shout at the newly-dark Green Ninja. "Twinkies!" I hollered, and saw him look at me. Did he _deserve _the name Twinkies anymore?

Lloyd looked levelly at me. I almost dreaded his next words, letting out a sigh of relief when they were incredibly low-key. "What is it?" He asked coolly. I stomped towards him.

"You promised me you'd teach me to fight," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. I watched his eyes rake my body for another sickening moment before he actually looked back at my own.

"You failed your first test," he said monotonically, nodding towards the space where we'd fought. I heard Garmadon's footsteps crunch against the bleached grass underneath us.

My mouth fell open. "Um, _what? _No, that was _not _a fight, that was your dorky, freaky attempt to kill me. That does _not _count!"

Lloyd stood to his full height, towering over me. Granted, I should've probably focused on Garmadon and why he was here, _how _he was here, and wanted to ask, but I shoved that further into the file cabinet of things I wanted to know. First, I wanted this guy to keep up on his promise. "Come on, Cupcakes," I gasped when he dusted off his hands. "You gotta do it."

Lloyd looked up at me, red eyes gleaming. "Oh, I will," he said, "but you won't expect it when I do."

My jaw fell open. He turned on his heel to grab his bag, picking it up to sling it over his shoulder. "Come on," he said, calling over his shoulder to Garmadon and me. I felt the former lord sidle up beside me in bewilderment. We watched Lloyd begin walking in the direction that we were initially walking in, trying to process it. He was becoming unpredictably strange. Very strange. I grabbed my own bag off the ground and, with a tug on Garmadon's arm, took off running after him. I wasn't letting him escape me _that _easy. "You owe me for your insults!" I yelped, catching up to his slow, easy stride. It was an irritatingly confident gait that I didn't enjoy observing. Garmadon jogged after us. I breathed a sigh of relief when he fell to my side. Not like I was gonna just keep walking and abandon him if he couldn't catch up, but it was nice to know he had enough strength to move fast enough. Maybe having the old guy around wouldn't be so bad after all?

"You owe _me," _Lloyd countered effortlessly, "for all the times I saved your life."

I'd forgotten those. Gritting my teeth, I clung to the satchel wrapped in my arms, knowing that he was completely right. "That's not fair," I grumbled, waltzing deeper into the dark forest of dead trees. They loomed over us with the prestigious glower that was only natively known to this specific realm, only indigenous to this dimension. I couldn't wait to get from the scraggly capture. The sun peeked endlessly through the leaf-less, dried out branches and stems. The ground became a kaleidoscope of light patches from both angles. The path stretched ahead of us for as far as I could see.

Lloyd nudged me with his arm. If it was yesterday and he'd done so, I would've grinned and returned the gesture with ease. Today, it sent shivers rolling so violently up my spine that Garmadon inverbally swapped places with me. I was both grateful and peeved. I could handle it myself without protective Dark Lords turning into brick walls.

Lloyd seemed to think it was amusing that his Daddy was coming to the rescue, and peeked at me from the road block between us. His red eyes ogled into mine with that same half smirk creating smile lines on only one half of his face. "'Fair'?" He repeated. "'Fair' isn't a word where _I _come from, Sugar."

It wasn't where I came from, either, but my eyes narrowed. "_What _did you just call me?" I snarled.

Lloyd's eyes flashed happily. Crap. I was egging him on. "Well, you're so delightful to be around, practically killing me and all, that I thought _you _needed your own pet name, too."

I gritted my teeth. Though Garmadon said something I wasn't paying attention to, I was busy fuming out everything I had in me. _Disgust_ing. "Shut up, Twinkies, and do _not _call me that _ever _again."

"Sure, Baby Girl, whatever you say."

Instant conclusion: I freaking _hate _him! Disgusting _pig—_Where are your big brothers when you _really _need them? Sure, they randomly appear when you're busy talking on the phone to your girlfriends about the new guy in your class (which I rarely did) and taunt you about it for the rest of your life, but when you _really _want them to punch a guy's lights out, they're M.I.A and you're S.O.L. I couldn't _wait _to tell Cole about this one when we got home—Twinkies wouldn't last five seconds once my brother got a hold of him…

* * *

**Please review! ^w^ and Go have an AWESOME Day/Night! **

**Keep calm, and Ninja-GO! ^-^ ~Kairi**


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER SIX:  
**…HE'S GONE OFF THE DEEP END

_He caught it._

The brush of fluttering wings tickled the advancement of his skin, kissing his fingertips with the lightest of touches. In the cup of his hands, its feelers paraded across his palms, tasting the pads as its several feet trekked around the circle. He beamed at his clasped hands. After all the trouble he'd gone through chasing this little fella, it was an accomplishment made when he finally captured it. In the distance, the echo of the lawnmower chewing the grass beyond the looming, two-story white ranch home was distorted. The house, windows wide and shades open, towered over him. He had to lift his feet higher from the ground if he wanted to walk in an awkwardly normal fashion, since the grass hadn't been cut in over a month. The lawnmower had yet to come to the front of the house. He bent his knees to angles he didn't enjoy, just to take a few steps forward. His wonder and awe pure on his face, he gleamed at the small creature in his hands as he opened them. The monarch's brilliant orange-and-black wings fluttered, and, with a parting coo, he let it free. It floated into the air.

How beautiful. How majestic. How natural. How _real. _

When it seemed like he knew nothing anymore, chasing the butterflies was his greatest relief. After all the pushing and prying and hounding by the authoritive figures in his new life, he was glad to have some alone time to himself. He smiled into the air as the monarch turned into a dot hovering in the distance.

"Chasing butterflies again?" asked a voice. He turned his head. The two boys walking up to him kicked through the tall grass, their faces carrying annoyed expressions, things he often felt himself experiencing every now and then. He found it difficult to remember their names, so he merely murmured a hello and turned to watch his little friend disappear.

"Careful, uh, dude," said the one. He looked at the boy's swath of wavy red hair, his joking green eyes, and wide face, wracking his brain for a name. Which one was this? He rubbed his forehead with great difficulty. The boy nudged the other, the dark haired, olive-skinned one with the thoughtful eyes. Oh, what was his _name? _"You could accidentally kill one. Then you'll be _insect-_ed for murder! Ha! Get it? Insect? _Inspect? _Huh, huh? Get it?" The boy laughed, when the dark-haired one rolled his eyes, covering his chest with crossed arms.

"We get it," sighed the tan boy. He turned to the one catching butterflies. "Hey, er, um…What's your…" He looked uncomfortable, confused. The others could relate to the awkward feeling. They'd been living in the same household for so long now, it would be figured that names would be easily rememberable. However, it was easier said than done.

"Zzzzz…." The redhead pursed his lips. "Zzuhh…No…Zeee….Zee? No. You're not Zee." He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.

"Zane," offered the butterfly-catching Zane, twisting a tall lock of grass around his fingertips. He didn't look at them, instead playing with the vegetation. He still didn't like the side-effects of his, um…What did they call it? Amnesia?

"Zane! I knew that. I was just testing you, you know, to make sure _you _knew your name," the red-haired boy said confidently. He had more to him than the others seemed to, more will to have a heart than Zane and, infinitely, the black-haired one. Zane was more interested in looking at things, figuring them out, watching them evolve. The green-eyed boy liked to play with pieces of metal, while the other liked to watch people and observe them. It seemed in his nature to study others' strengths and weaknesses over physical action, even though he was fitter than a custom-made corset. Zane always found him stretched out like a cat, relaxing in a chair, watching everybody else move. He always noticed the joking one liked to do difficult mathematical problems that the woman called "Ed-nah" handed him. Zane just wanted to go outside when the authority figures gathered them into different rooms to perform a serious memory game, or when they wanted to teach him something. He would stare longingly out the window, wishing that he could be out there playing rather than inside…listening. He sighed and broke the grass sliver in two.

"Ha! Whatever, Jay," grumbled the olive-skinned boy. He squinted in the sun. "I don't think you even know your _own _name half the time."

_Jay. _That was it. Zane looked at the boy knowing better that there was a name pinned to his face now. Jay pinched his face up. "Well how am I supposed to know _what _my name is, with Ed-nah calling me 'Cookies' all the time? At least I know _one _of my names. You don't know yours!"

"I do _too." _

"Oh yeah? Then how come you don't respond when the guy with the furry caterpillar on his lip calls to you?" countered Jay playfully. Zane smiled when he saw the content-ness of egging on the other boy. Adopting a new blade of grass, he performed the same activity he had with the last piece, except this time trying to knot it.

"Because he's annoying," the boy answered. "I figure if I don't listen to him, he'll go away."

"And how's that working out for ya?"

"Don't doubt my tactics. I happen to know a lot about plans," the boy said seriously. They stared at each other for a long moment before bursting into laughter. The combined chuckles of the three seemed somehow familiar to Zane, but he couldn't point where the melancholy sense of a hole was coming from. He felt as though something was missing, but what? He pried apart the knot. It was on the tip of his tongue, ready to dive off…except it never did. He ground his teeth in frustration. Every time he felt like he was getting closer to remembering, to naming what it was, it was gone before he could figure it out. It was irritating.

"You're more of an observer," Jay commented, voicing the thoughts Zane had previously had. "I don't see you being a _planner." _

"I do," input Zane. "His observing may lead him to become a better leader."

"Ha! Cole? Lead?" Jay guffawed. Zane sighed with relief. _Cole. _That was it. Now that both of them were named, he felt as though he could easily rest tonight. Cole and Jay. Cole and Jay. Jay and Cole. He forced himself to repeat them over and over again in his mind so he would remember them in twenty minutes. With the lawnmower, manned by Ed-nah's husband, E-_duh _(the last consonant was accentuated in their daily lessons) Zane saw him drive the old contraption around the side of the beautiful house. This house, from what he knew, didn't belong to Ed-nah or E-duh. It belonged to the other old woman…Oh, what was her name?

"Who owns this house?" asked Zane loudly. Jay and Cole stopped their fist-to-shoulder fight to look at him.

"Erm," Jay squirmed.

Cole's bushy eyebrows furrowed. "Me-sah-co. Me-sah-co Gahrmeduhn. "

"Right. Me-sah-co." She was friendly towards Zane, which he respected. Her kind blue eyes reminded him of someone, but of course, Zane didn't quite know who. Beneath her glasses, she was always hiding her face with her gray hair. He didn't think Me-sah-co was comfortable with all these people in her large house, but if that were the case, she never complained about it. Zane was grateful to her in ways he could hardly name.

Jay snorted. "What a dumb last name. Gahrmeduhn."

Zane nodded in agreement. "Gahrmeduhn. Gah-rrrr-meehh-done." He snickered. "Accentuate your vowels, guys. G-AH-rrr-mEH-dUn." Cole and Jay burst into laughter at his mockery of the adults.

Jay embraced an accent similar to E-duh's with a loud clear of his throat. "Careful now, you don't wanna sound completely bonkers. Try _loosening _your words so it sounds like, Gahr-meeeee-done." Jay held up his hands in the motions that E-duh often portrayed in his visual-linguistic speeches about grammar. Cole tilted his chin back in laughter, exposing his Adam's apple. "Oh, golly, oh, gosh, guys, be careful now, 'sounds like you're sayin' somethin' inappropriate now…Oh, golly, oh dear, oh my!"

Zane could have collapsed with laughter. The similarities in voice tones were so close, he could've been freaked out. Cole doubled in laughter, with a pain ebbing in Zane's own side. Jay then stood straighter; shoulders pulled backwards, he plucked a strand of tall grass from his side. He held it underneath his nose. "No, no, no, you're doing it all wrong!" he said in a deep, deep voice. He pushed Cole on the shoulder. "You're singing like a suh-prahh-no, Cole! Your voice needs to be _lower. _Do you want to mislead the audience that you're actually a woman?!"

"I swear, I was singing low enough for that _not _to be the case," Cole said around laughter. He wiped away his eye at the mention of the scene that happened earlier today.

Jay ditched the grass-moustache, yanking his sweatshirt closer to his ears, hunching his shoulders and bending into a hooked stance. He tapped his fingers together and looked around shiftily. "Now, be careful, Zane," he said in a scraggly, old voice, talking quickly while darting around the trio like a mouse on caffeine. "There are monsters under your bed. Oh, and robots. Did you know that if you connect wire A to wire B, you'll get an automatic reaction that ends in an implosion? So you have to be careful that the Easter Bunny never comes over and grabs your candy. That's why Suzie licked the spoon. Ducks. Look, a turtle!"

By then, Zane was having a fit of laughter so awful, he and Cole had collapsed in giggles into the tall grass. The old man that Ed-nah and Me-sah-co had dispatched to be his mentor was completely off, round glasses askew and crazy white hair wild. He never taught Zane anything simplistically significant, _ever. _Zane held his stomach while Jay fell beside them. When they weren't being attacked by the rabid adult teachers, they knew how to have a good time.

The sound of tires against gravel made them rise from the shadow of the tall grass. A sleek black car had pulled into the driveway. Cole, Jay, and Zane exchanged weary glances.

"A…visitor?" asked Jay slowly. "We never have those."

"Is it Ree-coo?" Zane asked, but didn't recall the man leaving in a black car. They started towards the front of the house while Moustache Suh-prahn-oh Man stepped out of the house beside Me-sah-co, wiping her hands on an apron to remove the dirt. They looked equally as confused to see the car hovering in their driveway, windows tinted so whomever was inside was hidden. Cole immediately took on a protective gait. Zane had noticed he liked to keep things safe, even when it was something as minor as a spoon. They faced the new visitor with confusion.

The driver's door swung wide. Zane leaned forward in anticipation to find a long, pale white leg stretching out of the car. A second later that bare leg led up towards the tall, slender form of a girl— Zane had been embarrassingly taught about distinctions between girls and boys, since beforehand he hadn't known there was a difference—looking like she was on a mission. Her upper body was contained in a button up blue shirt, her lower half in shorts for the unevenly hot season, and around her shoulders a brown messenger bag, stuffed full. Long, golden hair cascaded down her back in a shiny pool. And limpid, sparkling sapphire eyes scanned the image of the yard around her.

Zane stopped in his tracks.

_He remembered her. _

It only took the sight of her to trigger the spark of recognition. Her beautiful, flawless face was hard to forget—how had he forgotten her? Zane's greatest enemy nowadays was his memory, trying constantly to unlock the pieces he'd forgotten before he'd woken up in a hospital bed a month ago. It was so difficult to know what word was what, to connect a face and a name into one, to identify what an object was called. It was even harder to perform those memory exercises because he had no memory to go from. But when he saw her face, beautiful and grandiose, turning towards him with a smile as she recognized him, too, he felt a hot flash of memories burn through him. Zane's face lit into flames. Oh, this miracle, he'd _remembered _something! Even if it were something as miniature as this, it was something, reminding him that he was someone before. She shut the car door and waved at him with one hand.

Zane took off towards her, his feet ripping through the grass. The girl's smile never wavered. She looked expectant, but welcoming, her arms opening as she realized he was going to hug her. Zane pulled her into his arms with surprising ease and lifted her from the ground. He twirled her with happy laughter bubbling in his throat. She was _here. _She was _here, _and he _remembered _her. He _knew _who she was. He set her down, watching her smile at him, and his heart skip a beat.

"Hi, there, stranger," she said. Zane's heart fell.

"You—you don't remember me?" He asked, heartbroken. She didn't know him?

But the girl only laughed, wrapping her hands around his shoulders. "Of course I do, Zane," she said. He breathed a sigh of relief, and his heart started into a gallop once more. "It was a joke. Yeesh, with your humanity back and all, I woulda thought you'd come programmed with a sense of humor…"

He shook his head and pulled her into his arms again. "You are here," he breathed. The sweet floral scent of her honey-colored hair overwhelmed him. He drank it in, pulling her closer to him, her body pressed completely against his own. He could feel her heat soar through her clothes and into his skin, soaking up the beauty of her presence. She was _here. _She laughed and stroked his neck.

"Totally," she chuckled. She rubbed his cheek comfortingly. Finally, something that Zane recognized, something he understood. He felt his heart fall into frenzy again when she pulled back. "And you're in one piece."

"Yes," Zane breathed. The sun captured her face at such a beautiful shadow, he couldn't bear to wait any longer. He wrapped his arms around her waist and grinned. "I missed you."

"Really?" The girl asked, face squinting at the thought. "Why?"

"Oh, Carolyn—I mean, no, that's not you." Zane watched her face fall for a brief second. "No. She was the other one, the one that died because of the… the whatever it was. You are…Oh, I remember. Sorry, I just—I'm having all these problems with my memory…" His face heated.

She waved him away with a swift bat of her hand. "No worries!" She laughed, but Zane couldn't contain himself. He held tighter onto her.

"Danielle," he whispered. At the sound of her name, her brow raised. He thought back to yesterday with a shudder, but knew how it worked instinctively; with a quick movement, he yanked her into his arms, pulling her tighter against him, and crushed his lips on top of hers.

Danielle took a moment to respond. His hands tightened on her waist, his heart exploding with happiness. She was so familiar, he knew just where she wanted to be held. He raised her onto his toes and wrapped his arms around her upper back, rendering her arms dangly and useless. Her hands, resting shakily on his biceps, made mangled movement to try and force him away. But Zane held her closer. Her mouth was sweet, tasting of vanilla, her skin, as his nose brushed it, warm and inviting. He remembered. Danielle was the girl he'd loved, all those years before this, who he had fallen in love with first. Zane's heart beat roughly against her. He _missed _her. Even though he didn't even know her face two days ago, he knew that he'd been deprived of her beauty for too long. Zane pulled his lips off hers sweet and breathed into her open, gasping mouth.

"Zane," she managed. "What are you—"

"Shh," Zane whispered, and stroked her hair. That moment had been much longed for, a kiss he'd yearned to taste for a long time. He nuzzled his face into her throat and ignored the comments he heart from Jay and Cole, who he'd forgotten in their kiss. "It's okay, Danielle. I remember. You don't have to pretend anymore."

"R-remember what?" she whispered breathlessly. Her blue eyes were wide for her face, confused, rimmed in the perfect amount of makeup. He dropped his lips to kiss the corner of her mouth.

"You're Danielle Juliens," he supplied affectionately. "You and I have been together for so many years, through everything. I remember writing poems about you all the time. I met you, and that was all it took. Love at first sight, you could say." He gave a dry chuckle. "I met you, and from there, I don't know—I—I fell madly, truly, _deeply _in love with you. And that is exactly where I shall stay. Forever."

Dani stared at him. "Zane…" she whispered. Her eyes filled. _Why tears? _He wondered. _This is a happy moment! _ "Oh, Zane, no, I'm not—I'm not Carolyne."

"I know," he replied happily. He stroked her cheek with his thumb. "You're Dani, and I love you."

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**oh my glob. , PLEASE REVIEW!**


	7. Chapter 7

**FILLER CHAPPIE OF RANDOMNESS. x3 Really. it's really a filler. Lolz it was gonna be bigger, but I got tired, and I need to sleep a little bit...jiu-jitzu killed me today. DX**

* * *

**CHAPTER SEVEN:  
**A NEW CORONATION FOR A NEW ENEMY  
_~Yin~_

_I wrapped my arms around myself. _Garmadon's voice soothingly carried around me, his words supportive like Cole's normally was. My head buzzed with excitement. _Cole. _If Garmadon was right, and Cole really _had _come back to life, everything I'd ever need once running out of this hell would be laid out before me. No more evil, crazy Twinkies, no more psychotic/flirty princes, and certainly no more spray-painted-in-Castor-Oil old evil lords. I could safely wrap my arms around my brother and know that everything would be okay.

Yeah. Even _I _push it sometimes. Ain't no way all that is just gonna_ happen. _If I knew anything about this God-forsaken world, it was that if I wanted something, I had to damn well earn it.

My hearing faded into acuity. I turned my head to the mini-lecture provided by our one and only Garmadon, who it seemed, had nothing other than a last name to title himself with. I glanced sideways at him amid the scolding he was giving Lloyd. I didn't want to look at Twinkies, but I could feel that irritation broiling off him. Did Garmy _know _that he was annoying Cupcakes? If he did, he had some balls to actually continue. I know that _I _was getting freaked out by the twerp, not because I was scared of him—God forbid Seiko Mitsuhide be _scared _of Twinkies van Cupcakes—hey, I liked that one!—but actually because he was freakishly unstable. When you're freakishly unstable, you fall off the deep end. You fall off the deep end? Well, youch. That's gonna hurt. Let's hope you packed a parachute for this emotional roller-coaster. He scared me because, well, let's all face it, as hard as it is to think the Green Ninja had something called "Devourer's venom" in his veins, it's even harder to accept that the guy who saved your life, like, fifty times already was obscene and sexist. I brushed my bangs from my right eye and tugged on the dirty work gloves pulled tightly over my hands. Twinkies, before, I had liked. But this dude was certainly _not _Twinkies. He looked, sounded, walked, and blinked just like Twinks may have, but this shell-of-a-man was a replacement. Was it a sign of insecurity that overruled the fact that he let himself be taken over so easily? How come Mr. Ninja-Pants didn't put up a fight? I know _I _would have. I didn't want to lose myself.

So why did Lloyd?

Knowing Twinkies, Cupcakes, and Goldy Locks only accentuated the lost part of him, I scoured my brain for a better replacement. Pig? No, too common. Annoying Pants? Not really. It didn't stick. I uncomfortably rubbed the spot where my wrist had jammed against the ground before Garmadon had arrived. What could I give to him that I knew would highlight his change in big, bright yellow hues?

"I've got it!" I cried, stopping dead in my tracks. Garmadon and Lloyd stepped forward a few paces before stopping to look at me. Garmadon's gray eyebrows furrowed as he waited expectantly for whatever had struck my mind like a lightning bolt. Lloyd, poised on Garmy's left side, half turned to look at me, hips twisted from the waist up, legs facing forward. His eyelids drooped in half-acknowledgement. With the pack slung over one shoulder, he looked like he was off to school, but I doubted he had any other education to receive beyond the content of the lecture distributed by Garmadon. A lecture, I presumed, that wouldn't affect him at all.

I pointed to him with a snap of my fingers after plucking off my glove. Lloyd raised golden eyebrow. "Snickerdoodles."

It took him a moment. "What?" He asked slowly. His eyebrows creased.

"Instead of Twinkies, it's Snickerdoodles," I said, knowing the name was going to take a while to stick. I was so used to calling him Twinkies that it was difficult to see him any other way. Lloyd rolled his eyes, like he was expecting as much from me. Garmadon frowned.

"Why call him either?" asked the former lord. I cocked my hips.

"The name _'Lloyd' _is no fun," I retorted daringly. Garmadon shifted feet. "I thought 'Twinkies' was better—which it was, until he got all freaky-weird on me. So, I decided that he wasn't deserving of the name Twinkies anymore and decided that he would be re-coroneted as 'Snickerdoodles' instead."

Lloyd's face was wrinkled into a confused look, pointing in the distance towards the side of him. It was more of a disordered grimace than any other expression. "Is there a specific reason why you keep naming me after food products?" he asked, and I found myself smuggling laughter.

"'Cause," I answered, and I barely saw a half smirk. I didn't care whether I amused him or not; the guy had just recently taken a downward draw on women's rights. And, trust me, if you do that around me, I don't think you're going to survive much longer afterwards. Though my inner instincts told me to let dead dogs lie, I kept poking at the corpse with a ten foot pole. Lloyd wasn't my favorite person in the world, but to be honest, I had tolerated him in the beginning before he decided to do crack or whatever drug had turned him into this freaky mess. No, my favorite person was Cole, because he was the actual only acceptable person I would ever know. At least, I thought that until I met a certain few ninja. But you wouldn't know anything about that right around now, would ya? A'course not. I'll bet you don't even know my middle name! (Insert keyboard smiley-face of your choice here.)

Garmadon's shifty brown gaze morphed between the two of us for an instant later. I slipped my glove back on and, deciding that standing was getting us nowhere, paraded forward in the next step towards the end of our long, long, long journey.

* * *

**Yeah. **Like I said, filler chapter. x3 Jiu-jitzu, I'm tellin' y'all...too exhausting today. x3 Anyways, have yoga to do before I sleep, so off I go! ;D **Have a magnificent day/night/other**!

**Please review**, even if this was teensy. They're still wonderfully appreciated! Can _you _be the next star NfaN Fan of the week? Let's find out! **Tell me your favorite NfaN scene and your name could be featured here! ;3**

**And a shout out to my favorite NfaN Fan of the week: ZaneWalker! Your beautiful comments were so nice, I never stopped smiling all day! ;D **


	8. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER EIGHT:  
**DEFEATED  
~_Yang~_

_Dad's hands moved in front of him in _lithe gestures. I watched his blackened fingers twirl through the air, though the motions were hollow, and his words were too deep. The scars of their jagged tips still bled through the air, even as we walked leaving traces of their remains behind us. I held onto my pack with a death grip locked around the straps, trying to keep my anger only to a mild-teeth grinding than beyond what could suffice for management. Dad looked strangely in my direction without pausing the speech that left a tear in the atmosphere. "…know what it's like to be consumed by it, Lloyd," he said softly, my hearing starting to gather back into range. Tuning him out was too easy. "You have to—to _fight _it. I don't want what happened to me have to happen to you. You're such a good boy; I can't—I could never imagine what—" his voice cracked away into nothing, leaving his jagged words to pain himself rather than me, as they were meant to. I rubbed my forehead of the headache starting to bubble there.

The old me never would've turned away my father's words, instead embracing their true meaning through the constant of open arms. The new me…I just couldn't bring myself to care enough. I wanted to care. Some part of me, deep beneath this new strength that was destructively empowering, _wanted _to care what Garmadon had to say to me. It was like trying to force yourself to surround yourself with the things you hated; I remember having to suffer through multiple days in my parents' shared home after the Overlord was defeated. That sickening hate broiling in my stomach, that will to finish the job I _had _to do. The Green Ninja was supposed to avail a Mexican standoff with the Dark Lord, all of which I had done but technically never completed. _One _Dark Lord had fallen during the Final Battle, but the other had risen again, from the debris of aftermath in combat. Garmadon was still technically a Dark Lord, and though beforehand I had managed to keep my desire to defeat him at bay with numerous distractions, it still never officially subsided. How many more Dark Lords would there be before someone realized it was just never going to work, that no matter where they went, the Green Ninja would _always _stop them?

I searched for the specific feeling of wanting to do good. I knew what it felt like, since after Wu had adopted me into his ninja team, I had only ever wanted to accomplish so. But I just couldn't find a trace of the familiar emotion inside of me. Thinking about defeating a Dark Lord didn't bring me that natural sense of accomplishment as it would have before. In its place, I felt the only achievement to be the fact that someone had been slain at my winning hand. Obviously, this was a default situation that came with the package of venom, but somehow, I knew it should've felt wrong to think of it as my only option. I should've felt something different, something more, I don't know, perhaps acceptable? As the Green Ninja, my rights were defined as protecting those who couldn't protect themselves. But whereas before I had been completely encouraged by that thought, today I felt…

Well, I felt nothing.

Not the void of all emotion nothing. I didn't feel aroused to save someone. I didn't feel like I wanted to jump in front of a bus to save the life of a poor grandmother caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn't feel like sacrificing anything more that belonged to me in return for someone who was as ungrateful as _dirt _to me for doing it. Since when had anyone acknowledged the fact that I had done so many things to protect these people? I had forfeited so many of the things I loved for the friendly people of Ninjago, and not _one _of them had bothered to thank the Green Ninja, or hey, even bother to put candles in their window or something. I saw no one paying their gratitude towards the guy who had lost everything to save their sorry asses.

In other words, the only thing I felt aroused to do was stick up my middle finger in their faces and tell them that if they needed saving, they could do it themselves.

It irritated me that no one cared what I'd done. No one gave a damn that I was even here to help. Without me, Ninjago was probably crumbling like broken cookies at this very moment. And you know what the worst part—yet the most satisfying—was? The fact that I _wanted _to see them burn for what they'd done.

Oh, dear Christophers, I was starting to sound like my father.

The venom was working its magics already. I relived the past half-hour with myself mentally, rerunning episodes of my spite out of nothing towards Seiko, who deep down I knew deserved no hatred. She seemed like the central target of my means of physical anger. I wanted to…and why I wanted to, I didn't know, but…I wanted to electrocute the freaking _life _out of her. I wanted to without cause, reason, rhyme, or verse, just merely stop in the middle of this path and zap her ass into a coffin. It wasn't fair to want to kill off whom I could call a friend for absolutely no reason. Would I ever want to do that to Kai? Hell, no.

Why did I want to do it to her? To be honest, these few weeks we've spent together, we've only survived because of her natural instinct. I'd gathered as much information it took, as an observer, to know that Seiko's drive was centered with persistency on _survival. _She was someone who did everything she had to do to stay alive. She cared of nothing else other than that instinct. It appalled and fascinated me, before the venom had _really _begun to kick in, because she would've gladly assassinated anyone who got into her path for no reason, other than the fact that they were standing in her way. Now, I guessed I could've lived off the same philosophy as easily as it appeared she had. Her abrasive side obviously showed when she felt like equipping herself with it (which was ninety percent of the time.)

Seiko also talked in her sleep. I listened to her a lot when I watched out for predators creeping in the night. She spoke in slow, soft tones, when her chest only rose slowly and her eyelids flickered in a dreaming state. Her lips would part as she'd whisper something, though never screaming the things she wanted to say. It was the quietest I'd ever hear her, curled up beside the fire, wrapped in my white robe for warmth. Her voice would barely carry to where I was, and I'd lean forward to listen, trying to catch the things she'd be saying. _"…You think that you know how to save everyone, but how could you save yourself?" _Everything she said usually obviously had something to do with the half of the conversation I was not hearing, but I wanted to hear what she spoke anyway, despite the lack of understanding I carried. She'd murmur things that made me laugh. _"I really think that you should stop and move over…I'm claustrophobic." _I would brace my arms as a bridge over the steeple of my bent knees, rest my chin in the crook of my elbow, and lean forward to listen to her. She was like a radio. Everything she said had meaning, but no true impact to reality. She gave me something to entertain myself with before _I _dozed into soft sleep._ "Did you know that eighty percent of all tigers have an instinct to rip your face off the second they see you?"_ I had never known that. _"My Spidey senses are tingling." _

A lot of times I would hear her whisper Cole's name. It was a nightly ritual. Some point in time would expose a yearning plea from beyond her mind, a small, soft cry that would make her back arch, arms stretch, and muscles relax afterwards like a cat's. Sometimes, a tear would slip out the corner of her eye, reminding me how much it hurt to have lost someone. I never quite understood how much she really missed him. I hadn't ever known the two to be together, yet their appearances were extremely similar. You'd know they were related if you stuck them into a ballroom full of random pedestrians. Heck, it was a shock to me when I realized they were even related. Cole never had mentioned the fact that he'd ever had any siblings—although Cole was pretty shady about his past. And, apparently, everything else that happened. He'd gone through a lot more than he'd ever let on, shocking the world with the vampire bomb, plus the getting-Nya-pregnant part. It was a love triangle that I really hated to see unfold between my friends. I guessed that I could see where she would find herself attracted to him, but I would've sooner paired her with Zane. Nya was someone who I'd considered to be loyal to all and harmful to none who didn't cause harm to others. Instead, she'd placed herself in a situation where I wouldn't have figured her to be. Nya was supposed to be in love with Jay. God, it had broken his heart.

And I didn't care.

But at the same time…I did.

I spun on my father, rambling through his lecture like he was outdoing a haughty storm, giving him my most intense glare to cause him to be quiet before I even considered speaking. I stopped in the middle of the path in front of him and Seiko. She wouldn't look at me.

"Dad," I gasped, "tell me something about what's happening…up there."

Garmadon looked surprised. His lecture of keeping my faith faded away into the blackness of his face. "Well…What do you want to know?" he asked after a heart wrenching moment.

"What happened after I—sorry, _we—_disappeared?"

Garmadon looked to the sky, debating something within his head. I looked at Seiko, feeling a knot of spite twist in my stomach at the sight of her toying with her hands rather than meeting my gaze. She kept them curled beneath her chin, pulled against her chest. I knew I'd hurt her, but I didn't care. I looked more importantly to my father.

Dad rubbed his hands together. "I don't think this is something you want to hear when walking," he sighed after a moment. "We should take a seat, son. I have a lot to tell you."

. . .

"You're talking crazy. We can't break me out. Now get outta my bed, Sensei," Kai grumbled, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands to stop the awful pounding beneath them. Where had the old man even _come _from? When he reopened them, his robotic teacher was still there, but more importantly this time yanking himself into a lotus position. He rolled his shoulders until there was a satisfying _pop. _

Kai curled his lip in disgust. "Ew."

Sensei stroked his beard thoughtfully with his eyes closed. "Hmmm," he breathed loudly. "I sense your stress."

"No duh. It kinda inhabits this place. You know, cramped cell…death penalty hanging over me…I'm not exactly, ah, in the best position right now." Kai chose to curl up on the floor rather than fight with Sensei Wu about getting his one and only steel bed with a plank as a mattress back. The cement was hard and dirty underneath his tired body. He could feel Sensei's eyes settle on him, and the old man gave a laugh.

"What happened to 'A ninja never admits defeat'?" asked the robot. Kai closed his eyes and groaned. "Of all of my students, I would not have expected you to give up until the end, Kai."

Kai felt a knot in his heart twist. "Yeah, well, out of all your students, I'm the only one left," he lamented. "The other three don't even know their own names, and your nephew is turning into his dad, so." He sighed and rubbed his nose, closing his eyes. He heard Sensei's thoughtful throat exercises from above him.

"That is not true," he said softly. "None of what you just said is true."

"What, you think I'm lying? Go check it out for yourself, old man," Kai rolled onto his side, turning his back on the robot who had tried to kill him a month ago. "I have no idea how you got in here, but I know you can get out, and I'm sure Ed and Edna would be more than happy to show you that their son, along with his friends and my sister, has no clue what they're even alive for."

He sounded pathetic. He knew it, and he knew Sensei knew it. But Kai was standing on his last leg here. If the trial went wrong, then Kai would be put on the electric chair to rot his skin away through the use of technology. He knew that he was innocent. How did his fingerprints end up all over Brad's body? All over the murder weapon? Kai had never left the hospital once he arrived—and he was sure security tapes would show so. Brad had been alive, in police custody, when he had left Darkley's. How on earth was it possible that somehow, Kai had, in the prosecution's mind, "left the hospital, killed Tudabone for some strange reason, and return safe and sound without a drop of blood on him"? It was a pathetic attempt at sentencing him to death. Kai hadn't done anything to Brad except beat him up elementally and kill Eloquim. Further than that, he'd _pointed _to the living victim, rocking back and forth on Darkley's porch. He'd _showed _authorities a living, breathing Brad.

Things about this case didn't seem right. How did they get his fingerprints so fast? How did they get his _DNA_ so fast? Kai had seen those TV shows that talked about real murder investigations, and it always took at least _weeks _for results to return. It appeared it had taken these guys only a few hours. Was there some kind of new technology that Kai hadn't been informed about? Or was this some kind of attempt at foul play?

Sensei made a noise that grabbed his attention. He turned to somberly look at the old man. The lotus position abandoned, his teacher was now standing above him, holding his bamboo cane, arm poised behind his back. Kai raised his eyebrows. "How did you get that in here?" He asked, looking pointedly at the cane. Sensei's mouth twitched.

"Same way I got into your cell," Sensei said. "Magic."

"Right. Magic. Can you magically poof me outta here?" Kai asked sarcastically.

Sensei slowly blinked. It was at least _some _kind of acknowledgement. "Danielle's orders were very fluid," the old man said wisely. "She had direct instructions that I was programmed to follow."

Now Kai sat up. He looked questioningly at the old man standing above him. "Dani? Why's she ordering you around?"

"The Clockwork Army has been restored back to our factory settings," Sensei said. It sent shivers up Kai's spine to hear him say something so…strange. "Like your friends, we are normal, but our memories are jagged of the time spent teaming with Eloquim. With Caroline, the head of the Army, dead, then the second in command was ordered to take place. Danielle, in this case," Sensei tilted his head. "But her orders are not centered around locating the Green Ninja, as was previously directed by Caroline. She wants us to complete a series of tasks that will revive the Ninja's former memories. At least, my sector, anyway."

"Your…sector?" Kai pulled his knees to his chin.

"Indeed. She assigned me four others in my sector to complete tasks centering around reviving the Ninja's former memories." His words photocopied the previous spoken. His voice sounded like it was autoprogrammed to say the words he was speaking, like he was reading off an instruction list or something. "In any case, that is why she had sent us back to the monastery weeks ago to completely restore it. Since that has been completed, it is now my job to break you from your captivity as so you may return to your friends and take them home to my monastery of peace. There, you will find memories, and you will also find Spinjitzu. You must re-teach them the arts, Kai, since their memories—if gained back—will not teach them how. I have also had orders to tell you to light two candles in the window every night until the Return."

Kai's mind was swirling. _The monastery? _Thinking about the home the snakes had taken from them made his heart twist excitedly. He'd missed that place more than he would've missed his left hand if it was lost in battle. But there was more to it than he figured. "Why two candles?" He asked, jumping to his feet. Sensei looked at him levelly. "And what's 'the Return'?"

"Garmadon is leading Lloyd towards the portal that he can escape hell from, the secret portal that no underworldly creature knows of." Sensei tapped his staff on the ground. "He also brings the other girl whom of which I do not know the name of." His irises seemed to fix, like the unfocusing of a camera lens.

"Then why not light three?" Kai asked, thinking about Seiko, Cole's mysterious younger sister that he'd never seen before.

Sensei spoke without hesitation. "Because only two will survive the journey," he said monotonically. "It is written in Danielle's fortune."

Kai reeled. _One of them wouldn't make it back alive._ "Sensei," he asked slowly, "What did you mean earlier when you said I was lying?"

"I did not specify you were lying," said the elder man, "I only specified that you were incorrect."

Kai shifted his feet. "What was I wrong about?"

Sensei blinked slowly. His fingers rubbed against the staff. "You said of all my students, you were the only one left. That is incorrect."

"How's that incorrect?" Kai asked. He counted in his head back through the five of them. He was pretty sure that he was the only one left. _He's probably thinking about Lloyd, _thought Kai, feeling his heart wince.

Sensei gestured for Kai to sit on the bed. He did so, feeling no depression beneath his weight than he would've if he sat on the stone cold ground again. He looked up towards his teacher's programmed blue eyes for answers, and Sensei was ready to give them. "I have more students than you know I do," the robot said without tone. "Four others. They know who they are. And when you find them, they will know you, too."

Smack. Kai jerked backwards. Sensei had more students? But how was that possible? He guessed that the old man had lived a long life, but never once had he considered that maybe Sensei had taught other people before him, Jay, Zane, and Cole. Why hadn't Sensei ever said anything? More questions than answers were floating through the cell, and it made Kai lean forward, with a random question falling from his lips. "But what ab-bout the Seven?" he asked.

Sensei blinked. "The Seven will only count in the Great Battle, Kai," he said softly, sympathetically. "For now, you will have plenty of allies. But in the end, there will only be Seven who can fight the Battle."

"Seven can fight the Great Battle? But I thought only Lloyd could defeat…the Prince of Darkness."

Sensei shook his head. Instead of answering, he gave Kai directions. "When you leave here, you will go to the Garmadons' residence," said the teacher. "There, you will find your friends, and Danielle eagerly awaiting you. She will accompany you to the monastery of peace. She has documents, books, things that will help you better understand of your destiny, Kai. She knows more of this than I ever will. At the monastery, you will find my other students." He weighed Kai's reaction. "They will help you."

"Who are these students of yours?" Kai asked. He felt bad that he felt a little pang of jealousy in his heart. He didn't like the thought of having to share his beloved Sensei with four other people who he didn't even know. "Do they have elements too?"

Sensei shook his head. "No elements," he answered. "They have trained long and hard, as you have. I wish that you respect them, especially Taizo Bokuyo."

Kai thought for a moment. Taizo Bokuyo, if flipped around, as normally those type of names had to be, would be Bokuyo Taizo. He swore he'd heard that name before. He looked to Sensei for question. "Why?"

"Bokuyo is just a young boy," Sensei answered, "no older than Lloyd was. He has no sense of wrong."

"Oh. Great."

"Hitoshi Daijiro, my eldest student," Sensei continued, "knows more of the world than we will understand. I will not say why, but Daijiro is even wiser than Zane and I."

_Great. So that means now _he'll _correct us all the time? _Kai grimaced. Sensei moved on. "Zoki Maru is the second eldest, and is skilled in stealth. She is better in motion than you will have assumed, a true ninja at heart, but also a vampire hunter. Danielle will speak to Maru about Cole before you meet.

"And lastly, of my students, is Azai Koemi. I trust that Rikku will know her once they come upon each other, for their families used to feud. He will recognize her of the last name, but not of the first; Koemi has never met him before. One must be careful around her, for she is startlingly suspicious, but a wonderful child at heart." It would've been the perfect moment for Sensei to shrug, but robots didn't do that. "I have wasted enough time speaking already. We must hurry and break you out of here."

"Yeah, how?" Kai scoffed and rolled his eyes, still reeling from all this new information. "It's not gonna be that easy."

Sensei regarded him down the bridge of his nose. "We must capture the guards' attention. Once we do, you'll be able to Spinjitzu your way out of here, with my help." Sensei stroked his beard. Kai raised an eyebrow.

"Oh yeah? How are we gonna catch their attention? They won't hear us, or care."

"Oh, yes, they will, my student." Sensei wrapped both hands around his bamboo staff. Kai watched it twirl. "You just need to do one thing for me, and I will do the rest."

"What's that?" Kai asked, standing. He rubbed his bare wrists.

Sensei smirked underneath his fake beard, crouching into a defensive stance. "Easy," he said. A sharp point appeared out the top of his staff, rounded, but still violent. Kai swallowed. "Just scream."

And he drove the end of his cane right through Kai's stomach.

* * *

**PLEASE REVIEW! ^-^**


	9. Chapter 9

**CHAPTER NINE:  
**ALL OF MY FAMILY, BROTHERS FROM DEATH  
~_Yang~_

_The breath had been kicked out of my chest. _It felt like tears stung my eyes, but I didn't want to shed them, since that would imply that I was harnessing weakness. The ground, white and curled beneath me, shuddered and shook like I'd pounded my fist into it to cause a quake. My father's tale of everything I had missed gave me mixtures of emotions that I wasn't sure I knew how to deal with. When Seiko and I had disappeared into the Underworld, I had just suffered through flipping away my Humanity Switch, watching Cole die, knowing Zane and Kai were gone forever, and witnessing Jay stab himself under supernatural influence. For all I had known, my brothers were dead. My team was wiped out completely, my uncle gone, my father in hatred of me, my mother still trying to deal with how I would willingly kill him. I was stuck here with an annoying fifteen-year-old and a shot of Devourer's venom in my veins, growing larger in quantity by the beating of my heart. I had nothing, no one.

But according to Garmadon, my chances were _back. _

Kai was alive. Zane was alive. Cole and Jay were alive—and under better terms. Hell, Caroline may have decided to switch teams, but _my_ team was _alive. _Kai. God, _Kai _was _alive. _I didn't know whether to be happy at the fact that the guy I had adored was real again, or cry at the knowledge that whatever the case, I'd never see him anyway. Zane was also _human! _He didn't have to suffer living a thousand lifetimes past us because he was real, alive, true. Cole had been revived by Nya, and Jay was healing quickly from his self-inflicted wounds. Heck, Jay and Nya were _together _again because Cole had erased the memories of his interference from their brains. Caroline had somehow gotten the Golden Weapons and morphed them into a super Mega Weapon that Eloquim now had, but _ohmygod _Kai and Zane and Jay and Cole were alive. Their existence knocked out any negative information that my father told me, which included the sorrow that Sensei Wu—now a robot—had turned evil under Eloquim's power. Misako and Darreth and all the other robots had switched teams, too, but I supposed that it didn't impose as much emotion in me as it did to know that Kai, Cole, Zane, and Jay were alive. As an impassive weirdo, I had never had the chance to stop and think about them, because thinking about them would imply that I would care enough, and I wouldn't allow myself the freedom to have done that when my Humanity Switch was off. Although it was uncertain whether or not it actually was on _now—_it could be in that awkward stage where it was stuck in the middle of the gear—I knew that I could feel something inside of me, and that was a big, fat fricking wad of _hope. _

Hope that I hadn't had before, but suddenly had now.

I wanted to see them, despite the angry evil that forced me to want to kill Seiko and my father. I wanted to see them in the flesh to know this wasn't some stupid attempt at Garmadon trying to make me feel better. But hoping to do so would be stupid. After all, I was in the Underworld, the kingdom of death, and didn't have a chance at leaving until Eloquim got his Shadow Key. With my brothers still alive, hopefully they'd found a way to postpone him snatching it, but I didn't quite know how much longer they could hold him off. Regardless…

They were alive.

My hands felt numb. I looked towards my father, who leaned against the uprooted legs of a dead tree, watching my reaction carefully. At his side, Seiko knelt, her legs tucked underneath her and splayed at either side. She played with the grass underneath her, white hands curling around white grass, yanking and pulling from the soil. Her expression was unreadable, as I was sure mine was. I glimpsed the notice that her gloves were no longer covering her hands, revealing the thick red Eye on the back of her right. It mocked the genetic makeup of my own. I wondered again, for the millionth time, how she'd gotten it, why she had it. I'd left her with more questions and no answers. I figured I should've been generous enough to help her, but couldn't find myself able to give any kind of insight as to what was happening. Actually, I'd kept her well in the dark for this whole journey on why the hell she even had one. More so than not, it was probably pretty inconvenient, but she must've known better than to ask me. I needed to tell her a little about it. Now that I knew how my father had gotten here, I needed to tell him about everything that had happened to us while _we _were gone. I needed to—

Why did I care? Really. What was compelling me to care at all about these idiots? I felt my expression visibly darken. So what if they knew nothing? So what? I didn't care for them any more than I could've cared for Noel. I looked back on that sliver of moment when I had been excited about hearing that my brothers were alive. But that moment was gone.

I wanted to care but found myself unable to force the task. It was like wanting to try something new when you were too frightened to step outside the box. I briskly nodded into the ray of air, and hauled myself off the tree I'd been leaning against, my boots crunching against the dried grass. Garmadon looked hopefully for something in my eyes, but I just couldn't give him what he wanted to see. "We have to get moving," I said, completely beyond the subject of what had happened while I was gone. Truthfully, my brain still buzzed with all this new information I'd received.

"Where are you even headed to?" asked Garmadon softly. I snatched my pack off the ground.

"No clue. I just want to get moving."

Seiko looked up at him, her pretty oval face tilting to the side. Garmadon peered at her down his nose, arms still crossed over his chest. "He's got OCD. He likes things his way. I would not suggest arguing, if I were you."

"Right, baby, and let's keep it that way, huh?" I snapped my pack onto my shoulder. "Come on. No more time to waste standing here and discussing the weather." She bristled from behind me, continuing my determination to make sure she knew as little about her Eye as possible, out of sheer monstrosity. I started in the direction we initially had come. So what if we lacked purpose? We were going, and that was that.

"Don't let it consume you, Lloyd."

I paused. The soft quiet of my father's voice carried through the air. "It will eventually if you do not fight it. I know what it's like to suffer through the venom's grip, and I cannot let you get hurt because of it. Son, I know just how it is. I lived through it before you did. It is the worst thing that ever happened to me. But I will do whatever I can to make sure that you don't destroy yourself, Lloyd. You used to be such a sweet, innocent child, and for missing your youth I feel most apologetic. We cannot change the past, but we can prepare for the future, son, and I want to help you as much as I can. I cannot let this venom take you over like it did to me. When I see you acting this way…mistreating Seiko for no reason…it causes me pain."

I shook my head with a short laugh. I didn't need to turn to see the pathetic look on his face. "Oh really?" I scoffed. "Sure it does. Whatever, Dad. I've seen enough heartache to know that this style of living is way better."

_"No, _Lloyd, it's not! Don't you see? Pretending your emotions don't exist will never save you from anything. Your friends are alive! I just told you so! How can you continue to lack your true spirit? Why are you letting it take you over, Lloyd? Fight! I've never known you to give up like this!"

"Did it ever occur to you that you don't know me at all?" I whirled, facing my father with a scowl. Feet away, he flinched like he'd known that one was coming. I aimed my anger towards him. He was stupid to say that. Seiko still crouched on the ground with her knees bent and her hands resting against the ground, looking as innocent as ever. "Think about it. When have you ever been there for me?"

Garmadon hung his head. "I never have," he admitted, "and I will regret that for the rest of my life. But if you don't deal with this now, one day, you will end up just like me, with nothing, no one. If you don't fight the venom now, in the end, you will become me, and your own son or daughter will end up living the same life you did. You don't want that, Lloyd. It hurts to know I abandoned you the way I did."

I smirked. How pathetic did he have to be? "I hate kids," I said blatantly. My father's hung head slowly rose in question. "They're stupid and annoying. I'll never have any, so don't worry; I won't curse them the way you cursed me. But it's nice to know you're thinking ahead."

Garmadon watched me in quiet bewilderment. My words, tangy with malice, were shocking him with every sentence, I presumed. "You never know," Garmadon murmured. "Your mind could change."

"I seriously doubt that."

"There are accidents."

"Oh, well," I said uncaringly. So what if I accidentally got a girl pregnant? She could deal with the kid all she wanted. If not, they had operations for that. I crossed my arms over my chest, leaning back like a cobra ready to strike. The look on my father's face couldn't be described with words. I knew I was hurting him and most of all scaring the crap out of him, but I couldn't bring myself to care enough to want to stop. In fact, it was so hard to think of stopping that I could've laughed aloud. I tapped my foot. "Now, let's move. Seiko, get off the ground and get over here. Dad…come if you want." I bent to pick up my pack. Seiko slowly responded.

"I know a way out," gasped my father at random, quickly, like he was afraid my turned back would result in him being forever alone. I heard Seiko grab to her feet with a rustle and a clump. Again, turning to him was pointless, but I cocked my head to let him know I was listening. "The portal that returned me to the human world," he said breathlessly. "Maybe my words can't stop you from returning from the influence, but seeing Kai just might. I know how much you love him, Lloyd."

"Congrats. So we now know you're not an idiot." I turned, once again, on my heel. Silently inspired by the thought that there was a way to escape the Underworld, I paid full attention, giving my gaze to him in a slit glare. I hadn't considered the fact that my father had gotten out of here once without using the Shadow Key. "Spill, old man. Time's ticking."

Garmadon wrapped his arms around himself. "The portal isn't too far from here," he said. "Just up a nearby mountain. I-I was on my way there when I discovered you," he admitted sheepishly. "If we hurry, we could reach it by sunset."

I grinned widely. There was a sliver of something, after all. I looked at Seiko's shifty form. "Well, then, what are we waiting for?" I asked, and whirled on my heel to depart.

* * *

**Quick announcement So please read?:**

****So I was recently brainstorming, and I had a major epiphany...as we know, there are only 2 books in the series left...but I had an extreme plan to change Book 5 back into "The Celestial Timeline" from the current title, "The Great Battle" and then maybe making "The Great Battle" be book 6 instead? ^-^ Then, that way I could make NfaN a **seven-part book series! **Does that sound like a good idea? (I have a seperate Idea that would happen after TGB, which would be why there would be an extra bk. after wards) I dunno, tell me if it sounds like a good plan or not? :D

Dawn of the Nindroids slow updates! IK! Sorreh! Will try to update when I can (been SOOO busy!) Thanks for reading, and **please review! **Go have an AWESOME time today/night! ~Kairi


	10. Chapter 10

**CHAPTER TEN:  
**THE ESCAPE

_"This wound will not stay long!" _shouted Sensei over Kai's mangled gasps, trying to understand what was happening. His teacher's voice was loud, quick, trying to pummel some kind of information into him, but excuse his bad manners if he wasn't paying the prettiest of attention at the moment…"Your father constantly watches over you, Kai! Do you not realize that you have never gotten seriously injured throughout this whole journey? It is because his powers have kept you preserved! You've had a hammer hit atop your head for crying out loud! Yet here you are, alive and breathing. So quit your gasping and start screaming!"

Kai stared at him. Sweat started to trickle down his face. As he moved, he could feel the staff inside of him touch something, feel it shift through the guts it penetrated. It was the grossest thing Kai could ever have imagined. He gave a strangled cry, but it wasn't loud enough to attract attention. How could it? He had a piece of bamboo shoved through his insides. "You…stabbed…me," he gasped in surprise. The staff inside him compressed with the breathing he inhaled, and he could feel the awful breaths turn into quick gasps.

"We all know you don't willingly scream, Kai," said Sensei from the reciprocating end of the staff, clenching it with two, old, mechanical hands. His eyes bore into Kai's like there was a life lesson to learn from this. "So scream now, or this will get worse."

"S-sc-cream? Wh—wh—y?"

"Kai, I am not running the spiel through with you again. Just do it! You'll be perfectly safe when the bamboo is taken out of your stomach!" Sensei wiggled it, and Kai gave a mangled cry. His voice was torn with hurt. He bent over the hilt, his own hands clutching for the staff, but it was getting blurrier by the seconds. His tears that blinded him dropped from his face and onto the concrete floor underneath him. "I swear," Wu shook his head, eyebrows low, as his expression donned disappointment, "Daijiro wouldn't ever take so long to disobey me. Scream!"

"Don't…" Kai grunted, trying to force the bamboo out of him, but with the strength he added, Sensei shoved back with twelve times more. It was a game of tug-o-war that was actually aimed inwards; instead of pulling, the contestants were thrown into a deadly commotion of shoving the object in question towards each other. "…compare me to s-some…ninja that I don't…know."

"I compare you to no ninja," Sensei said angrily. "You are the ninja. Daijiro is not."

"R-riddles? This is-s no t-time for r-r-riddles, Sens…" Kai's sentence couldn't waste. It was gone before he finished.

"It is no riddle! You and your brothers are the only ninja I have ever taught!" Sensei stared him down, his crooked, hurt position, pressed against the concrete wall behind him. Kai had been forced into this awful situation while he was sitting, commemorating him a brand new ache to try and deal with. With his right eye squeezed shut, Kai winced, staring up at Sensei in the middle of his pain. He didn't quite know what his teacher was speaking about. Then again, Sensei had stabbed him, something he was sure was far direr than bumping him over the head with that staff. "I never have taught any more ninja than the five of you, Kai."

"F-ffiveee…"

"Lloyd. I taught Lloyd, too, you know, but you four mostly did that." Did Kai see a flash of something in Sensei's eye? It was too quick to translate, but he glimpsed the envy within the robots eyes. He felt his muscles contract around the staff—trying to _heal. _He cried out. "That's it! Louder!"

"A-answer m-me fir-rst." Kai tried to tighten his shaking hands around the staff. "If-f y-you didn't-t tea-ch-h your ot-ther students-s to be n-ninja then wh-at a-are t-they?"

Sensei looked like he wanted to slap Kai across the face, but if he did, restraint was always one of his best traits. He shifted his hands on the hilt. _Funny, _Kai thought dimly, _I'm able to barely have a conversation while I've got a thing stuck through me. Is that pretty ninja, or what? _He could've smiled.

"You and your brothers, as my students, have flexibly earned the title of ninja, but you do not always perform ninja-like tasks. You are meant as heroes, but ninja never fought for that. You steal things on the sly, but normally are caught from carelessness. You may overhear plans of the enemy by accident, but it was never your original task. You naturally are able to move quickly and stay out of sight, but Kai," Wu stared him down, "you are not the type of ninja that are really _ninja." Um, what? _Kai opened his mouth, except his teeth clenched in pain. It blocked the words from escaping his lips. _We are TOO ninja! How can he say this?! _"As I said, you earn the title because you are ninja-like, yet you are not exactly ninja. My other students were trained specifically to be _shinobi. _Covert agents that practice sabotaging plans, assassination, infiltrating camps and bases, plus a little espionage never hurts. They are mercenaries. You…do not practice such things. You never truly have killed, Kai. But Daijiro has."

_Not true! I have killed! I've killed Eloquim to save your ass! _Kai grew angrier with that name. "Daijiro." Pfft. What a dumb name! _Why do you keep comparing me to him? And we _are _ninja. We're just… PG ninja! That's it! We're not gonna actually…you know…kill…_

_Lloyd has killed plenty, _whispered an unknown voice in the back of his mind. Its voice ebbed closer as though someone was murmuring it into his ear. _And he's younger than you. _

_It's Lloyd's duty to kill, _thought Kai. But was it really?

_With the way that Wu talks about his other students, _crooned the voice, _is it possible he likes them better than you? Is that why you never knew about the _shinobi, _because he knew the four of you would become jealous? You know you don't deserve the name 'ninja,' because you know Sensei is right. You are no ninja. You're a lousy failed attempt at one. _

"Shut…up," Kai grunted to the voice. Whose voice was it, anyway? He couldn't recognize it, or completely configure why it was in his head/behind his ear. Like an unreachable itch beneath your skin, he wanted to figure out who was saying it to him—it sounded familiar enough—except, well, it danced out of understanding before he could name it. The voice sounded male, but when he thought of it, also sounded female; the voice pirouetted between genders, depending on what pitch it hit. It cruelly forced him to suffer confusion.

Kai's grip on the hilt slipped. His hands were too sweaty. There was no way he was gonna make it outta this. Sensei glared at him, but Kai figured it was better to die than sit here and rot…

_Lloyd. _

"Lloyd!"

For an instant, in his daze, Kai could've sworn he saw the Green Ninja standing behind Sensei, arms crossed over his chest, to watch Kai suffer. He blinked a couple of times to make sure he was real (or at least he thought he blinked) but Lloyd stayed. His expression winced, blue eyes pained. Kai wanted to take that look out of his eyes. "Are you just gonna give up on me, Kai?" asked Lloyd in a small, childish voice that echoed throughout the room. Kai's hearing picked up on every wave, while Sensei seemed oblivious. "Are you just gonna go without me? You always promised you'd take me with you if you went…What happened to that? Kai, I'm so alone, so scared. You have to help me! Don't go!"

Tears formulated in Lloyd's eyes. He looked so small, so feeble, that Kai hurt to see him hurt. His hands, curled underneath his chin, evidently trembled. Kai looked at his round, childish face, big blue eyes fearful of what might happen to him, and knew that he couldn't let Lloyd go. If anyone was going to rot, it would be him, trapped underneath the surface of the earth with nothing, no one. He gave a grunt, rammed against the wall, feeling the staff move inside of him again. He looked at Lloyd's scared face one more time.

"No," he groaned, "I won't let you go." Sensei looked confused, but Kai continued to breath quickly, forcing himself with residual strength into a ninety-degree angle. "You're…not alone. I will always…" He pushed against the hilt with surprising force. Sensei seemed startled by the newfound yank attached to his determination. Kai hated the way he felt the staff dragging through the hole in his gut. "…be with you."

Lloyd looked hopeful. The tears fell, but his expression had brightened. "You will?" He asked. Kai had never seen Lloyd so feeble, so helpless before, but he loved every second of it, knowing that he would be able to protect him. Kai felt the sweet suck of the staff pry from his stomach, and he gave a gasp of pleasure without it sticking through him anymore. Sensei looked back and forth between Kai and the bamboo without understanding how on earth he was being beaten. He shoved aside the staff so roughly, it clattered to the floor, completely soaked with Kai's blood. He held his hand to the hole in his gut, feeling air touching his insides, but through the tear in his uniform he saw the wounds beginning to quickly heal. _Sensei was right, _he thought in bewilderment. _My father _is _watching over me. _He didn't know why Elathan gave a damn, considering the awful things he'd done to Kai, but was grateful that he had some kind of protection. The hole of his stomach turned into a bloody scar before Kai was even sure how it had happened. The pain in his torn insides now echoed with the mystery of the memory, but therefore no longer hurt physically. He smiled. By God, Elathan had saved his life.

He looked at Lloyd, seeing the boy's face light up like a child's. Kai's heart began to beat faster at the sight of him. Sensei bent to pick up the staff, and looked coldly towards the fire ninja. "You never screamed," said the robot. "You need to scream to capture the guards' attention. Unless you have a better idea?"

Lloyd bobbed on his feet. _Why doesn't Sensei see him? Why am I not running over there to hug him? _Kai wondered, but his feet wouldn't take him there. Lloyd met his eyes with a childish smile. "Hi," he said, wagging his fingers. "You're staring at me."

"Sorry," Kai snapped his gaze away. Sensei scowled at him.

"Of course you should be! Now scream so I can make a scene!" He thought that Kai had said sorry to him? Kai wanted to say something, but he saw the old man come at him in a rush. Thinking strictly to his own business, Kai decided to dodge it, and reappear behind the stunned sensei. He'd moved faster than the robot's eyes could've followed. Lloyd did a dance that looked uncomfortably scared. Before Kai could quite understand what he was doing, the smaller boy pointed at the door. "They're coming!" he squeaked with wide eyes. Kai looked to the door. How did he—?

_Cameras. _They'd seen through the camera in Kai's room. Sensei whirled as the white door was thrown open, revealing two uniformed guards. "Hey!" one screamed gruffly. "How did you get in here?!"

Sensei exchanged a glance with Kai. Sure, the old man had said Kai wasn't a ninja, saying he didn't have the purpose that real ninja did. Yeah, it did hurt to hear, but maybe he wasn't, after all. Maybe he was just the blacksmith's son from down the road, who got sucked into this mess by some seriously messed up trail of events. But in the end, if anything, Kai was a determined, loyal kind of guy, and letting people down wasn't his forte. He may not have been a real ninja, but he was a master of Spinjitzu, and that was saying enough, wasn't it? He had brothers who needed him—and a specific brother who had to be saved. Kai glanced back at Lloyd with a feeling in his heart. He didn't give up on the people he loved, and where he thought it was okay to drop out of the game had been a mistake. Ninja or not, Kai was going to do this for his family, the only family he'd ever known. So what if Nya wasn't his real sister, or Cole wasn't really his brother, and Zane wasn't really his robot-like sibling, and Jay was no actual blood-relative? So what if Sensei wasn't the father Kai treated him like, or Garmadon wasn't the uncle that he never had? So what if Lloyd was the only kid that Kai had ever loved with his whole heart and soul? So what? It never changed the fact that Kai would rather go through hell and back to know each and every one of them. He would never have changed anything about their past, because he loved all of them, and damnit, he wouldn't ever give upon them. If that monastery was rebuilt specifically for Kai to train his family with then that's what he'd do! He would do anything for them. Anything. No matter what it took, Kai would do what he had to do to keep them safe, alive, and happy.

_That _was his purpose. Not being a ninja, not being a hero, not being the son of the king of the underworld. He didn't have to want to sabotage plans or infiltrate camps or assassinate someone to know that being loyal was well enough a damn good reason for him to be considered _some_thing. Ninja or not, Kai was still Kai, and he was going to do what it took to fulfill _his _purpose. Not Daijiro's, not Bokuyo's, not the _shinobi_'s. Just his. Kai Smith, son of a blacksmith, who ran the shop with his little sister after their dad died. Not the dude who got wrapped up in every part of this "ninja" business. Not the guy who was adopted. Not the guy who died because he was scared of letting things go. Not the guy who fought skeletons, snakes, and statues in his spare time. Not the guy who fell madly in love with people he knew he would never be with.

Just Kai.

The guards saw the blood, the hole in Kai's shirt, saw the staff and Sensei but not Lloyd. They processed it for a moment, trying to understand what was even happening, but those few seconds was enough for Kai.

Just Kai.

"Ninjaaaaaagoooooooooo!" He shouted. The Spinjitzu was long missed, by what felt like years without its familiar art. The air whirling around him turned into a fiery storm that knocked the guards off their feet—plus a couple of loving smacks from Kai's feet never hurt anyone—and out of the doorway. Kai's cell paused on the second row from the ground, with only a staircase that was miles away, too far and too tedious. While his Spinjitzu faltered and the guards slowly recovered, he glimpsed Sensei hitting them both with his staff into unconsciousness. The clanging and chatter from other pedophiles, rapists, murderers, assaultants, and the likes dimmed from his floor when they all became entranced by the escapade in progress. Kai turned to Wu. "Which way do we go?" He asked, hearing profanities and comments yelled at him from inmates, which he ignored. He looked back into the cell doorway, at Lloyd, who stepped around the bodies of the guards with muffled apologies. Sensei still hadn't acknowledged his presence. And somehow, neither did Kai. Shouldn't he feel excited, confused how he was here? His brain was more focused on becoming a fugitive.

Wu blinked, holding his staff comfortable. "Down, of course," said the wise man, and Kai looked over the railing. It wasn't that high up, really. Except…

"Looks like we're about to have company," Kai said, and pointed towards the only staircase, where more blue-uniformed guards were starting to file in.

"They have Tasers," Lloyd added. He pointed towards them. "And guns. Those look like they hurt. You should get moving."

"Come on!" Kai grabbed the railing, and heard a bullet wiz past his head. He whirled. Lloyd looked disbelieving. "Let's go!" He waved to Sensei, who jumped onto the railing with ninja-like skills; Kai looked to Lloyd, but the Green Ninja shook his head.

"Not much I can do from here," he said, and pointed towards himself. "I'm actually just a figment of your imagination. But I'm a _rational _part of your brain. And also, the other part of me is evil and the dying good part is trying to get a hold of you with telepathic connections I didn't know I had. Don't worry, Kai," the beautiful young boy winked, wagging a finger. "I'll come home in a few hours. _You _just need to get out of here so I can see you. You don't know how good it is to see your face alive," breathed Lloyd, and Kai's heart wrenched.

"But…"

Sensei grabbed Kai's shoulder from above. He yanked on the material. "What are you waiting for?!" shouted his teacher. "I must keep you safe, Kai! Come, so we may escape! I don't want you to get hurt!" Kai looked fearfully at Lloyd's confident smile. _So that's why Sensei can't see him, _he thought. _Because he's not real. _

"Shoo!" Lloyd moved his hands in a motion. "Go!"

The guards were closer now, bullets whizzing past Kai's head right and left, Taser shots coming out with the shouts of halting that he wasn't going to listen to. Leaving Lloyd—even though he wasn't reall—was breaking his heart already. How many more times would he abandon the kid? He almost considered staying behind to protect him, but then he noticed the shimmer in Lloyd's dazzling appearance. _He's not really there, _Kai thought, and Lloyd winked. _Go, _he mouthed. _Or I will shove you. _Kai laughed. Lloyd had said in a few hours, he'd be home. Kai's heart pounded with anticipation. Without another word, Kai gave him a look, hopped onto the edge of the railing, and dove.

…

There was a lot of blood. A lot of sweat, a lotta tears, and a helluva lot of running. Bullets, catching his skin with stings, but never entering his body. Hallways of wrong turns, cellblocks farther from the entrance of the jail than it was closer. Spinjitzu used constantly by both an old man and a tired teenage boy, using stolen Tasers to fend off guards coming by the tons. It was a hard fight that the details could've lasted forever to describe, something that was certain you don't have. He wanted to spare _himself _the details, but he was more confident in himself now than he had ever been. Kai wasn't naturally an insecure person; in fact, his egotistical attitude showed that he had self-assurance rather than self-doubt. He liked being Kai, being a ninja, even if his sensei didn't consider him one. He knew how to handle himself, what being himself was all about. Kai may have had a bloated sense of self-worth, but he knew that his value was something over nothing. He never doubted himself, not normally. He was buoyant in the rivers of rocky hormones and desires. Desires, like wanting to know what a kiss was like, what it felt like to be held by someone who loved you more than as a friend. He'd never had time to go through the trial-and-error inner-parenthesis relationships that most guys his age already had. He didn't know what it felt like to have that secret feeling between he and another person only shared, that ran specifically between the two of them, never divided to someone else. He didn't know what it was like to hold her hand, or brush hair out of her face, or wrap his arms around her when she wasn't looking. He'd never actually considered family life before, either. The whole time Kai was fighting for his life, he was picturing the things he hadn't experienced yet, that he'd like to in an innocent ray of light. Trying to break out of jail probably wasn't going to do anything for his image, but there were friends he needed to help first. Being in jail wasn't going to solve their problems.

Did Kai want kids? He'd never really thought much about it. Pummeling in a guard's face with his fist and a blast of fire, he continued to think about it. In the future, Kai had always hoped to go to college, settle down, get a girlfriend who'd soon turn into his wife. After the Overlord had died and everyone continued to postpone their departures, he'd had a little time to think about the kind of person he'd want to marry, but it had always been waved away with a bat of his hand. He wasn't specifically _looking _for a relationship. He was that kind of person who fell in love and stayed in love for many years afterwards. And with this false conviction coming over him, he would never be able to go to college after this, because he'd be a wanted man. Maybe he could move into the Birchwood Forest where absolutely nothing happened. He could build a house out there. Maybe he'd find love someday. And did he ever want kids? Yeah….yeah. He did. Most guys wanted a son—if they wanted any—but Kai wanted a daughter. A little, beautiful, adorable little daughter, who would be just like her mother—whoever that would be. And he wanted to name her…He'd always been fascinated by the name Tokemi. Kai had already planned part of his life as a convict, and there wasn't even any guarantee that he'd escape.

But Kai wouldn't sit in here while his friends forgot their names, and he wouldn't sit in here for not killing Brad Tudabone. He wouldn't suffer for this.

The police had been warned, arriving around the same time period that Kai and Sensei reached the entrance. They'd taken out a lot of guards, and he was starting to feel panicked. What were they gonna do, run through the front doors? The cruisers were starting to arrive quickly into the parking lot. For sure, he was going to be given the death penalty today for just trying to escape. Kai looked to Sensei, hovering in the front of the station beside him, with the police barreling towards the door with loaded guns in their hands. They'd managed to get the doors allowing people into the jail part of this building sewn shut by Kai's magmatic fire against the metal, welding the doors together to they couldn't be opened, but how long would that keep them safe? Kai looked towards Sensei again. The old man rummaged through his jailbird's uniform pockets.

"What are you looking for?" He asked. Sensei barely glanced at him.

"Danielle prepared us a potion," Sensei murmured. Kai's brows furrowed.

"A…potion?"

"Yes! Aha!" Wu wrestled two small vials out of his pocket. Filled with clear liquid and contained by a rubber stopper, the shiny, opalescent fluid shimmered under the florescent lights. Kai gaped. "This will turn us invisible long enough for us to run out the door and get into the woods. Hurry, take it!" he shoved a vial towards Kai as the police drew nearer. When he saw the familiar face of the detective who'd arrested him, Kai yanked off the rubber stopper. Dani had been a "witch," or so they'd claimed. _Let's hope she knows what she was doing, _he thought, and tipped the vial upwards the slam the liquid down his throat.

It was cool, refreshing to his parchment, but it didn't feel like magic. He chucked aside the vial, watching his hands. They didn't change. He looked at Sensei, and found the old man patiently waiting. "Why isn't it working?!" Kai gasped. "Sensei, it's a fake; it's not—"

Then Wu started to fade right before his very eyes. Kai looked towards his own hands, finding their transparency beginning to grow. The potion…had _worked? _Kai looked towards his teacher, but the old man had disappeared, his voice the only thing that told Kai he was there in the first place. "When they throw open the door, follow my lead and slip outside."

"Your lead," Kai repeated skeptically. He couldn't see the teacher, nor could he see himself, which he found kind of strange. Nevertheless, the police threw open the door, their eyes angry and searching. Kai was certain that they'd see them, that somehow, their eyes would pick up on the potion and they'd know he was standing right there. An officer's gaze fell atop Kai. He froze. _They're going to see me. They'll know I'm here—_but the officer just kept looking.

"Where'd they go?" He asked. Kai looked towards the door, swinging open as another police personnel entered, and he seized his chance to grab the glass casings and swing it wider. He ran out the door as soon as the threshold was cleared. Heart pounding in his chest, Kai was aware that he ran purely on adrenaline, was working over himself too intensely, but when that fresh air hit his face, he felt beautiful. _I'm free, _he thought, testing the words. _I'm…free! _He raised his invisible arms into the air, but his journey wasn't over yet. Sensei's strong voice carried from beyond.

"Kai! Where are you?" the teacher hissed in a whisper. He looked towards the wood beyond the prison.

"Sensei?"

"Come to the trees!"

Kai did as he was told, darting quickly for shelter in the casing of the woods. The grass and limbs rustled around him as he tried to make no noise—ha, maybe no ninja after all—while looking for Sensei. He quietly hissed his teacher's name. Light—real light!—filtered through the scattered tree limbs onto dispersed patches of lone grass. He'd never really seen how truly beautiful the woods were. A blotch of sunlight combed onto a small clear of space between two trees, giving him insight as to where he could go. The Ninjago Jailhouse wasn't smart enough to add walls around its prison, but instead leaving it surrounded by woods. Kai had been told that dangerous things lurked in here, things mutated and specifically added into this place to attack convicts who escaped. He shivered and hoped that wasn't true. "Sensei?" he whispered loudly. "Sensei?"

There was no sign of the old man. Had Kai really lost him?

"Hello, Kai."

He whirled at the sound of the familiar voice. He'd hoped it was Wu, but was sorely mistaken.

"Good to see you again, I see."

"What are you doing here? How can you see me?" Kai spat. Loathing dripped off his tongue and into acid at his feet. "Where did you come from?"

"I come from many places, but I gotta admit, this is the most convenient. I see everything, Kai. Didn't you know? Hyper sensitivity with my senses and all."

He felt his hands turn into a red-hot burn. He was ready to hurl fireballs through the air. "What are you doing here?" He repeated. "Answer me before I burn you to death."

"Whoops. Sorry. Can't die." The voice carried towards him. He wanted to singe every note of that cat-like purr out of the air.

"You're supposed to be dead," he growled. "You were dead."

"Things change." There was a crunch underneath a heavy boot. "When will you ever learn that this world is more cruel than you know? There's no way that you can kill someone without their return. It always happens. I'm shocked that you, of all people, didn't know that."

Kai blinked hatefully. "Why come back? What do you want?"

"I want only to help Cole. That's my purpose, you know."

"No, you want to _stalk _Cole. Get the hell out of here, Maya," Kai snapped, and his hands burned into flames. She stood in the shadow of two trees, untouched by the light, her black eyes loathing. A small smile came to her lips. The last Kai had seen her, she was running for her life, trying not to die from Eloquim's departure. Today, her usually orange outfit still carried the same bright hues, with a turtle-necked collar attached to her strapless shirt, wrapped around her frontal half. Her white skinny-legged jeans over high heels—in the grass? Come on—were long and accentuated. And her blood red hair still fell over her shoulders, bangs still pointed in an arrow down the bridge of her nose. She stared at Kai with that haughty look on her face.

She wasn't the person that Kai wanted to run into out here. He looked around for Sensei, dimly noticing his appearance was starting to become visible. "Get out of here," Kai commanded, but Maya shook her head.

"No can-do."

"Then it sucks to be you." Kai prepared himself to hurl a fireball at her, the fire igniting in his hands, poised to throw like a baseball. He grimaced at her, but Kiko only watched in amusement. Her smile unnerved him. It only made him want to kill her more. "Goodb—"

"No!" yelled a voice. Kai whirled to find Sensei shuffling through the wood. "Do _not _do that, Kai! Don't you know how to treat a guest?"

"G-guest?" Kai spluttered, fire faltering. _Oh, no, _he thought, _it's Garmadon all over again!_

Sensei glared at him sternly. "Yes. We have recruited Maya to help train Cole."

"Train Cole to do WHAT?!" Kai whirled on his teacher. "Sensei, don't you get it? She'll just be using you to get to him! She's evil! She's gonna take him and run off with him or something—Sensei, you can't let her—"

"ENOUGH!" Kai clamped his mouth shut, but fire broiled inside of him. Wu's gaze clung to him severely. "Cole is a vampire, but no one can teach him _how _to be one. His memories have been erased, remember? He does not know how to feed, nor to understand his strengths. Do you think Lou could teach him? Edna? How about Ed? There is only one other vampire on this planet, and that is Maya. She has agreed to passively assist Cole learn how to be a vampire again. Respect this decision to do what is best for him, and apologize."

"WHAT?! You can't make me apolo—"

_"Apologize!" _

How could Wu not see that this was part of her plan? She was trying to get to Cole, to take him somehow with the use of her insanity. Cole didn't remember that Maya was evil, so he wouldn't know to fight back. This was all part of her master plan. UGHHH! How could Sensei not know that? Had _he _gone insane? Kai turned around to glare at her through slit eyes, half his mouth curving downwards in hate. This was going to taste awful, coming out his mouth. "I'm…." He swallowed the bile in his throat. "I am…" why was this so hard? "I'm s…"

Kiko Maya cocked her head. "Didn't hear you. Could you repeat that?"

Kai squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his fists. "I'm…" He clenched his teeth, too. "…s-s-sorry."

"Perfect!" Maya clapped her hands together, jarring Kai out one eye to peer at her. "This will be so fun!" In an instant, she'd cleared the distance between them, appearing at Wu's side randomly with her hair still falling to her shoulders from being windblown. Her expression was haughty. "I can't _wait _to see my favorite little ninja people. Welcome back from imprisonment," she said, and Kai gritted his teeth. "You ready to go, Roomie?" Maya grinned.

Kai slapped his palm into his face. This was officially the worst "Welcome Back" present _ever_.

* * *

**And **we are ONE STEP CLOSER to reuniting the Ninja! They've been apart for so long, I'm so excited to bring them together again! ^.^ And, with Kiko Maya (Maya Kiko in English) officially going to be Kai's "roomie..." Well, like he said, it's Garmadon all over again! :D

**Please review! And go enjoy your day/night! XD**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:::**

**Sorry **_it's been so long an update! All week I've been in and out of the hospital. Take my word for it, it did NOT feel very good. But at least now, I have a little bundle of joy to come out of it, my little Narumi Saiko, whom I am so lucky to have. I love her to death and will devote as much time as I can to her. ^-^ XoXo Naru! _

_Plus, it doesn't help that MY FREAKIN COMPUTER CRASHED AND ALL MY WORK WENT AWAY GAH explosion—aside from that, I had to rewrite the chapter. So, again, so sorry, but here it is! I hope you like it! (Sorry if its bad quality!)_

* * *

**CHAPTER ELEVEN:  
**INTO THE LIGHT  
~_Yin~_

_"I brought Wu there long ago, when _the Serpentine kidnapped you, Lloyd," Garmadon voiced, his stride matching his son's in attempt to catch Lloyd's ever-dulled attention. I drug my feet behind them, scuffing red dirt underneath the soles of my combat boots, supplied graciously by the tenacious Prince Noel, who was awkwardly silent in the fact that he was missing two of his prisoners. You would think that by now, the guy would've preferred to stampede into action rather than letting our disappearance fly out the window like a free new bird. My Spidey-senses were tingling, telling me that he was up to something, but with Lloyd being all weird, I didn't think I was going to bring it up. Actually, I'd like to talk to Garmadon about it before I even thought twice about turning to Snickerdoodles for help. It would be too weird to try and make conversation with a jackass. Above us, the sky was still bright by two suns' kisses, and the forest of scraggly blue trees and whispering white grasses was beginning to thin. Garmadon had said that we were reaching the end of the Dark Forest and into the Mysterious Mountains. Creatures of rock formations lived there, he'd said, like, twenty times. He said they had a name, but he was so old he'd forgotten what they were called. Figures that your sense of what must fade over time.

I had this knot in my stomach that I couldn't undo, and it was beginning to make me feel disgusting. It was almost like anxiety. I kept thinking that something was going to happen, but seriously, _what _was going to happen? Would something go wrong? Probably not. I had Macho-Snickerdoodles and Mr. Garmadon—who, again, had no first name—to throw in front of the monsters that tried to attack.

I wanted to hit myself the instant I thought it. That was how I _used _to operate. _"Better you die than I," _was my previous motto. But you'd think that I should've changed my customs by now. It was reflex telling me to think that way, shaming me into condemnation when it came up. Admittedly, there was no excuse for my pretentious, cautious, completely suspicious attitudes, but therefore I couldn't be completely swayed. To shake me of my practices would be like pushing me out of myself, and how possible that would be surely wouldn't sail. I stuck my face into my hand, only to realize, half a second later, that it was my right hand I'd fallen refuge to.

Though the gloves covered it, I could feel the mark burning through the leathery material. Lloyd wouldn't tell me anything about it. He just called it "the Eye," but how would you feel if you woke up from death to find some strange tattoo carved onto your skin? I didn't know what it was for, why I had it, or—or, well, _anything. _I'm flipping _confused. _Why is it that every time something big happens to me, I'm always being shaded by its glow? I never quite know what anything is about until after the fact—in example, the whole Lou-shipping-me-to-Oppenheimer-which-was-actually- Sunnyside spiel that threw me over the edge. Even though I'm the main character in the plays, it's always _me _who gets to learn my lines last. It's kind of really stupid. No, not _kind of; _it _is _stupid. UGH.

"Lloyd," said Garmadon, breaking the silence that ensued after his previous statement, "I…"

"Don't say it," snapped Snickerdoodles. I jumped at the harshness of his tone. Keeping his stride confident towards the end of our journey, he stared straight ahead, never once flipping to the side to look his father in the eye. "I don't want to hear it."

_Hear what? _Garmadon sighed. His blackened shoulders visibly drooped. "I don't want you to become what I once was," said the former lord. I heard something in his voice, but I couldn't quite catch what exactly it was. There was a feverish desperation in his eyes. _He really wants to get his point across, _I thought, scampering closer to him. I peeked around Garmadon's broad chest to look at Lloyd, who caught me glimpsing out the corner of his red eye. I started and hid. Yeah. I know. Pussy, right? What kind of Seiko Mitsuhide hides from red-eyed dickheads?

Insert heavy sigh here. Me, I guess.

"I really, really don't care," said Lloyd. His tone was flat, uncaring, empty. "Save your breath for directions instead of lecturing me. It'll all avoid my ears anyway. Pointless."

I would've given up trying to save him from the deep end, but Garmadon, desperate to recapture his old son, continued through the advice. "But Lloyd…I love you. I don't want to see what had become of me repeat itself. You know I left you with your mother because…well, I was a bad influence on you. Seeing it still never changed your upbringing—what was she thinking, sending you to Darkley's!—it was still better than staying. I was no good, Lloyd. I was never a good father. But you…you are so pure, son," Garmadon's plea stopped Lloyd physically with a grab at Lloyd's jacket. "So, so pure."

Lloyd rolled his eyes, as though this was the most pathetic attempt at father-son bonding Garmadon had ever attempted. "Yeah, Dad," he scoffed harshly. "We all know I'm a virgin. What's your point?"

Garmadon didn't flinch, but that word made me cringe. My one weakness, aside from chocolate. I've always been especially sensitive to words that revolved around, erm… 'adult activities.' "You are the one person on this earth that can love completely," Garmadon softly grieved. "Your heart is so large, so willing, so strong and determined. You feel everything, yet now you feel nothing." I watched as the lord's eyes glistened. _Glistened. _As in, with tears. It was kind of ironic, seeing Papa Garmadon starting to _cry. _And Lloyd, the whole soliloquy, just stared at him, eyes empty, face impassive of reaction. "I-It's hard to understand, but I know with all my soul that you are the best thing that ever happened to me, Lloyd. I have never regretted taking you." His intake of breath was shaky, and I watched as the swift red eyes of Snickerdoodles narrowed. _Taking…? _"I love you more than myself, more than your mother. I don't want to see my son destroy himself, become what he is not. You are a beautiful person. The most beautiful. Why do you think that _you _became the Green Ninja?" Garmadon gave a dry, short laugh. "Your heart is big, and so is your love for the people around you. You are _pure. _Unadulterated. I used to be like you, you know. But then the Devourer bit me, and everything changed. That is why I can't let you become what I once was." Garmadon shook his head at Lloyd, whose eyes burned through their slits. He hadn't stopped curling his lip slowly since he heard the words _taking you. _"I love you too much."

_Clap, clap, clap. _

I whirled. Lloyd and Garmadon snapped their heads to the sides.

"Well done," said Noel, slowly stalking out of the cover of trees, dressed untraditionally in dark jeans and a sweater. His brown hair, still stick straight and hanging thinly to his shoulders, didn't stir, but his green eyes burned brightly with laughter. His legs swung slowly around each other as he took slow steps from where he'd hidden. My heart began to pound in fear; the last I'd seen him, he'd given me poisoned fruit. Dapplejunos seemed to continuously screw me over. It was a total omen that me and those things were just _not _meant to be.

Noel's eyes barely passed over me. It wasn't really the reaction I was anticipating, because I was supposed to be dead. However, he seemed…different. The aura I was sensing off him wasn't very _natural_. That kid had changed, somehow, over the course of our last meeting. That twerp, I _knew _he was up to something…But, uh, what, exactly? Not like I knew. Nobody told _me _anything.

"That was very touching," commented the prince. My heart didn't stop pounding fiercely in my ears. It was so loud, I was sure he could hear it; his eyes rolled on top of Garmadon with a fond glimmer to his face. "And my old teacher. How long has it been? Ah, what does it matter—It's really good to see you, Pops. I just wish you weren't trying to, ah, well, break out my prisoners."

"Y-you," Garmadon stuttered. Noel's wide lips curled into a scary smile. My pulse jerked upwards to about forty beats per half second. _Stupid heart, _I thought, and tried to calm it with serious practiced meditating breaths. "N-Noel?"

Noel's smile never disappeared. I tried to think about what exactly had changed on him. Was it the clothes? No. The face? Not really. He'd gotten a little more pedophilic since I'd last seen him, but I was sure that wasn't what I was grabbing here. _Gawd, _what _was _it? I'm usually so good at figuring people out. Whazzup with my strange emotional issues lately? It's like I'm not even _me _anymore. "Yes, that is my name, sir."

_Sir. _Funny how he tried to fill me up with date-rape drugs but still had the chivalry to address his elders as 'sir'. What a weenie.

Lloyd's fists clenched. I looked at him, trying to find some kind of calm there, but his bloody eyes just scored heats into Noel's tanned skin. "How do you know we're trying to escape?" Lloyd snarled. I could feel the hatred to where I practically swam in it. Neither boy enjoyed each other's attendance to our little gathering. Testosterone was totally _flying. _

Noel barely batted his eyelashes. "I'm no idiot," he said. "I know about the portal up in the hills. What kind of king wouldn't know about their own kingdom?" He shook his head slightly.

Garmadon and Lloyd seemed taken aback. The older of the two blinked rapidly to clear the confusion floating around. Why can't emotions just pop out of you like little emoticons or question marks? It would make looking at people a lot more fun. I didn't know what was so shocking—I mean, Noel _was _right, as bad as it was to admit.

"You _know _about the portal?!" Lloyd gasped. Wow. Actual emotion. Score one for Garmadon, minus two for Lloyd. "B-but—the Shadow Dancers—"

Noel waved his hand. His face scrunched into a _pah _look of whatever-ness. "Those stupid immortals," Noel grumbled. Apparently, he _hated _Shadow Dancers—didn't that stupid satyr tell me I looked like one when we first arrived? "They need the Shadow Key to return. No creature, monster nor half man, can travel through dimensions using Traveler's Tea. You must be mortal, or of mortal consistencies." I saw Noel's lip twitch. He was fighting some kind of smile. _There's a deeper meaning behind his words, _I thought with suspicion. Noel looked at me, his lids falling over half his eyes. "And you, my pretty creature—why, look at how _you've _changed. Sorry about the murder of your mortal form, but I had to in order to complete my Transition. At least now, you look like a beautiful, immortal corpse." Noel's face dipped, looking at me from underneath his lids. The intensity of his stare made chills ripple up my spine. I could feel creepy-crawlies walk all over my skin with every second he spent devouring me with his eyes—I wanted to run away and scream, the wail already built into my throat, ready to explode any second now. It almost felt like a panic attack, ready and kicking, climbing up my vocal cord. I couldn't speak, could hardly breathe out of fear.

"Immortal corpse?" Garmadon mimed. To my relief, Noel's gaze flipped back to his teacher, relieving me of the pain. I felt like he'd been holding a knife to my throat, and now I was able to relax.

"Why, yes," Noel purred. He was enjoying this. "The Yin of the Yang. Didn't you know, Garmadon? Didn't your pretty little human wife tell you?"

I felt like I'd heard that one before. Snickerdoodles lost all the color in his face. And Garmadon…well, he just stared. "No," he answered flatly.

Noel closed his eyes as he spoke, tipping his head towards the ground. The smile on his lips made me shiver again. "The Yin and the Yang have a destiny," he began. "A destiny far greater than even that of the Green Ninja's. While purity and hope drives the _yang, _destruction and chaos combines _yin. _In a balance of _aether, _the _yin _equals the _yang. _But when the balance is upset, both sides will rock until they are equal once more. They are equal. They cannot coexist without one another, nor can one be chaotic without the other helping it become balanced. Eloquim was very thorough in his directions. The _yin _is extremely important," Noel said. "And that is why I. Need. That. Girl."

_Crack. _A long, thin coil of black rope mysteriously launched from Noel's sleeve, aiming for me. In the instant it took me to realize that I was under attack, Lloyd had already swerved around Garmadon to grab me out of the way, his hands closing around my upper arms and dragging me behind him so I wouldn't be hurt. My head spun. With an expression of determination dominating his visage for a second time, Lloyd reached out to grab the end of the rope, coiling it around his wrists and yanking with all his strength. Noel was prepared for the counter. From his other sleeve, he produced a long, pointed wooden dowel, something that would instantly kill Cole. He hurled it towards Lloyd with intense speed.

Garmadon jumped in front, grabbing it out of the way and catapulting himself over the tight rope strained between Lloyd and Noel. I gaped. Okay, wow, _ninjas. _The blackened man chucked the dowel back at Noel, but somehow, the sweater-clad boy deflected it with his hands. Lloyd took the moment to seize another foot of the rope, bringing him closer to Noel, but that wasn't a good plan. The prince produced a dagger from his belt. "Catch this, old man!" He laughed, and flung the spinning weapon. The hilt, encrusted with bright jewels. Made a round circle as the whole thing completely rotated at immense speeds in the air. I started forward—standing there like an idiot wouldn't help anyone—but Garmadon had already done it. He leaped in front of Lloyd again to catch the dagger. An instant too late, I screamed for him.

The dagger's blade pierced his heart.

Lloyd's eyes bulged. He was too shocked to move when his father stood two inchest in front of him. _"No!" _I shouted. My voice was high pitched. I didn't know I could scream that loud, but I didn't have any time to marvel. _Garmadon. _

His blackened form shivered. He looked down at the blade in his chest like he didn't understand; even as I ran towards him, the conception started to come forward. Dazed, Lord Garmadon reached for it, clasping black hands around the hilt, and pulled it slowly from his chest. I already saw the mistake, darting forward, except again I was too late.

Blood sprayed out his chest, a fountain of red secreting into the air. Thick, heavy crimson painted the white grass shades of death. The sight of it had never made me as queasy as it did at that exact moment; stumbling, I found myself stopping with a clairvoyant ache in my wrists. Like an idiot, my hands clapped over my mouth. Garmadon collapsed in a heap on the ground, a heap of nothing but black oil, blood, and empty, empty white eyes.

Lloyd dropped the rope and fell to his knees. His beautiful face was a mask of horror. "Dad!" He shouted. I could hear the crack in his voice. "Dad! No!"

My legs were numb. My brain buzzed. _I have to go over there, _I thought. _Go! Go over there! _It took serious willpower to get my legs moving. Lifting their lead from the grass and dragging them forward was like carrying a ton of bricks. _Omigod, _I repeatedly thought, like some stupid idiot. _Omigod! Garmadon! _

When I reached him, I fell into a pool of his blood. The lord's eyes were empty, soulless. He was gone. Desperation rising, Lloyd rolled his heavy body onto the back and looked at the spraying wound. Blood squirted my face. I had to turn away, unable to take it. So much_ blood. _How do people comprehend this kind of stuff? Sure, you watch movies and read books about it, but you never really…_understand _how truly awful it is. The warm, sticky substance hit my skin. I looked into Lloyd's face.

_How many more times will he be broken? _whispered a voice in my head. _He's shattered. And it is only you who can fix him. _

_M…me? _I thought in a moment of stupor. I looked into Lloyd's red eyes, watching tears run down his cheeks. His lips screamed, but I couldn't hear him through the pound in my ears.

_It is only you who can calm him. Only you can take away his pain, _reminisced that same bilingual voice, that could belong to any nationality, any gender, any person. I peered through the fountain of blood at him, watching him sob. I felt a burst of something in my stomach, something that I knew was coming, indecipherable, misunderstandable. If you asked me why I thought it, I don't know, but…I felt like that was _true. _That I _was _the only one who could take away his pain. Lloyd met my eyes through the fountain.

I reached for his hand.

When our skin touched, it was like a transformation caused by an electric shock. The vein coursed through my body, one single shot of it, zapping up my arm and into my heart, where I felt it burst into an explosion of rapid beats and a consumption of heartfelt sensations. His face, once torn by sobs and pain, immediately cleared, like the clouds disappeared from the sky by the snap of a pretty finger. His emotion emptied, leaving a dazed, sleepy eyed look that stared into my own eyes. Me…I felt so _alive. _I had never felt that way before. It was as though I had never seen the world before this. Whatever I'd done had made my eyes brighter, made everything become high-definition. I looked into Lloyd's red eyes and knew, somehow, that I had healed him. Don't ask me how. I could never tell you. But Lloyd looked at me, and I could see every goddamn part of his face, and he looked completely beautiful at this angle, and I wanted to slap myself, but the feel of him made me so _alive _that I wanted to see more. More of everything. The things I had missed when I was locked up in Sunnyside. Life. The world. Reality. _Lloyd. _He made me feel hopeful.

And it was the most pathetic thing I'd ever felt in my entire life.

_They are equal. They cannot coexist without one another, nor can one be chaotic without the other helping it become balanced. _

"I'll kill you for this," Lloyd spat towards Noel, whom I'd forgotten. I watched the pain drain away from his face, replaced by determination so thick, I felt it run through the connection of my fingers to the back of his hand. He was soaked in Garmadon's blood, covering his dark clothes from the chest down, patched across his hands and splattered on his face. It flecked into his hair, too, matting it together. I reached for Garmadon with my free hand and slowly closed his eyes. _Rest in peace,_ I whispered in my mind. I didn't know Garmadon, but tears formed in my eyes.

_It is because it hurts Lloyd to lose him, _whispered the voice. I almost jumped. It sounded like…like it was right behind my ear. _What hurts Lloyd hurts you too. _

_Why? _I asked, before I realized I was practically talking to myself.

_You are one, _it said simply. _Always, and forever. _

_~Yang~_

I grabbed her hand, curling it into mine, getting drunk on the way she made me feel like it didn't hurt anymore. Letting her go would mean I face reality, which sucks. I could safely look at my father, and grieve, but not _overly _grieve, if that makes sense. I had to avenge his death, because his killer was standing right in front of me, laughing his ass off like killing _my _dad was the funniest thing on earth. But what that little bastard probably didn't know was that he'd just messed with the wrong Green Ninja.

I got to my feet after Seiko closed Dad's eyes. I'd whisper to him later, but for now, I had to kill a certain fire prince. "You just made the _biggest _mistake of your life," I said, walking around Seiko, shielding her to protect her from Noel's creepy black whip. Her hand curled around my blood-crusted leg, and I felt another dose of calm hit me. Like an inhaler, I was stimulated. But I knew I had to commit this murder _some_time.

I stepped onto the earth, hard.

A rumble of an earthquake tore across the ground, knocking Noel off his feet. I gave a grim smile, then leaped into the air, spinning forward before hurling a shot of lightning in his direction. It crackled across the ground, catching him as he scrabbled for his footing. Noel shrieked. When I found my own, I hurled ice towards him, and a blade of it went through his hand. It probably was bad that I wasn't satisfied with inflicting that little pain. A flamethrower sprouting from my hands caught Noel's feet, and I scorched him, although I knew it didn't do much because he was a fire prince. Noel jumped onto his feet, a human torch, staring at me through the flames with hatred and anger.

"_You _shall rue the day you set the Prince of Darkness to fire," he shouted. His attempt at being scary bounced off me. I was still thriving with Seiko's touch.

"Yeah, whatever, puny person," I said haughtily. He had already bored me. "Eat my dust."

I stomped on the ground again. The force threw him into the air and flying backwards, a time which I took to my advantage. Brewing between my hands an orb of ultimate green power, my creation heated in my hands, within it exploding bursts of ice, fire, lightning, and earth. I felt Seiko, with my senses, standing slowly, watching me create something so magnificent between my hands. I called on every ounce of power I had in me. _Please please please please PLEASE don't be dead, _I thought to my inner power, and made sure Noel was still out cold. (He'd whacked himself against a tree.)

I opened my hands.

The golden power burst from my palms, exploding with the true control of the Ultimate Spinjitzu Master, tendrils wrapping around me in familiarity. I let it fly from my body, erupting into reality, my true potential igniting the earth around me. The trees flattened with it, and the golden dragon expelled from my body, soaring into the air upwards. I heard Seiko gasp. The last I'd seen him, we were in the Elemental Realm, and I was clinging onto Kai while we rode a crazy wolf towards the Temple of Light. I had thought he was dead, but I realized that he was a _part _of me. He couldn't die; not just yet. I watched him flap his magnificent, broad wings, every beat cracking trees that tried to stand up again. His large had swung around to face me, and he gave a loud, happy shriek. The golden tendrils curling around his body tightened and constricted. Hot air from his nostrils hit me, and I laughed.

"Hey, boy," I said loudly. The dragon yelled in response.

I heard Seiko's footsteps come closer behind me. I turned to see her brushing her bangs out of her eyes, just a bit at a time, but opening her face to me. Her eyes were on the golden beast hanging about us, wide, awestruck. I smiled to see the childish wonder on her face.

"You've been holding out on me," she said. I winked.

"I've got a few tricks up my sleeve," I admitted, and Seiko smiled. She reached for my hand. I couldn't force myself to object when I felt her skin slide across mine, or the rush of calm that came with. How could she make me feel so content, so okay, with just her touch? Why did the concept sound so familiar?

I wanted to search every piece of mental info I had, but I could sense Noel waking. I looked to my dragon. "We need to get to the top of that mountain," I told him. His wings hit the air. "Fast. Before my dad…"

Voice cracking, I looked at him. I was so, so glad that somehow, Seiko sucked away my pain. I don't think I could've survived if she didn't. I was the punching bag of evil villains out seeking revenge on me. Hey, it's that stupid Lloyd, let's just kill someone he loves. Except that if my dad wasn't lying…then everyone was alive again.

I shook my head. I'd spent his last moments _hating _him…_NO. _I needed to get out of here before Noel woke up. It was painful, dragging my hand out of Seiko's. I ran to my father's body, the fountain of blood gone, but completely shrouding him in black soak. I slid my hands underneath the gory pieces of disgustingness that encased him just as my dragon landed. Seiko jumped. She didn't look as scared as her brother used to be of the flying lizards.

After putting my father onto the dragon's back, I reached for Seiko. "Come on," I said, "let's _go." _She looked to the rein-less, saddle-less beast and gave me a raised brow, but stepped forward. "I'm going to haul you upwards; then, can you step up on your own?" I asked, reducing the strain on my own muscles. Seiko rolled her eyes.

"Light as a feather, Snickerdoodles," she said. I winced. It's really dumb, but I missed being called "Twinkies." Isn't that bogus?

My hands wrapped around Seiko's waist. She was right; she was lighter than I thought she would be, slim and nimble enough to clamber up on her own. She adjusted Garmadon so his head rested in her lap, curled across the dragon's flat back. The oversized serpent made a grumbling noise of pleasure when she rubbed the scales of his neck.

I paused a moment. Watching her pet him, I felt something wrench inside of my stomach. Seiko Mitsuhide, with _my _dragon. The odds of me ever meeting her without Eloquim introducing us had been barely nonexistent. I never would've _considered _meeting her without his force. But I was honestly…I liked knowing her. She was different. More different than the usual people I associated with. And she understood what it was like to be alone. There aren't very many people I know that have that experience.

Seiko caught my eye. I could almost hear her laughing at my stupidity. _"What, Twinkies, you going soft on me?" _She'd laugh, and punch my arm. I absentmindedly rubbed the tender part of my bicep she would've hit as though she actually had. Instead, she smiled at me, and I felt my stomach flop.

There was the sound of metal dragging on metal, and it came from behind.

_~Yin~ _

"LLOYD!" I shouted, my voice rising more octaves than I could've known. His soft smile turned quizzical, his blonde eyebrows furrowing. With his hands in his pockets, he looked at me, only to hear the metallic scraping coming from the trees. The dragon screamed when it, too, realized there was a threat.

Lloyd whirled. Noel drug himself up, his left arm dangling awkwardly at his side. The kid was limping like an idiot, but in his dominant hand, he held a shuriken, pointed and cleanly sharp for a kill shot.

Lloyd tensed. I watched his muscles heave. Noel looked crazed, his hair messed up, his arm broken, his clothes dirty. I knew that that was his true form. His smile was insane—and I knew what insane truly looked like. There was no mercy in his wide eyes.

"We're not done yet," hissed Noel. Lloyd rolled his eyes.

"Do I have to beat you up again, little prince?" He asked, his deep, scratchy voice making shivers ripple through me, and not in a bad way. My heart began to drum in fear for his life. Noel looked really…well, _dangerous. _I'm not gonna lie, dude looks freaky. But Lloyd seemed naturally oblivious. "I'm sure you don't want that, so me and my friend are going to leave, and you're going to go fix that arm because it's starting to creep me out. Okay, pretty boy?" Without waiting for an answer, Lloyd turned back to me, somehow confident that Noel wouldn't attack with the shuriken. I whispered the Green Ninja's name urgently, but more of question than worry. The dragon bent his knees so Lloyd could better climb on.

Before he could find his footing, I looked to Noel, readying myself for what happened next. My scream came out with only _half _Lloyd's name. Instead of making a colorful commentary, Noel's arm pulled back and his wrist flicked in such a way that made me think he was good at hurtling those things. Lloyd whirled.

Time stopped into slow motion. I shoved Garmadon's body off me to lean forward, extending my hand as the shuriken aimed straight for Lloyd's heart. It chinked molecules in the air that answered with metallic spinning noises. Lloyd looked surprised, but he wasn't moving fast enough to fight off the weapon; _has my calming-power-thingy worn off? Does he want to die?! _I thought in fear. Noel's laughter rang through the air worse than my bloodcurdling screams. _"No!" _I shouted, and reached my hand further out. The shuriken gleamed in the sunlight.

My palm began to strangely tingle, like needles prickling the surface beneath. Lloyd took a small step back—Oh, god, the shuriken was only three feet away—Oh, God, _Lloyd, _I—

It sprouted from my palm, a long, thick, heavy black mass that no light peered through, a long tendril that moved as quick as a lightning strike. Just like in the river, the shadow was manipulated by my own ability, although I had no idea how it happened, or what it even was. The thick smog of black dove in front of Lloyd's body. It instantly manipulated itself into a glob that hovered half a foot from Lloyd's chest, but as the shuriken sailed into its mask…

It never appeared on the other side. The shadow had swallowed the bladed star _whole. _

As quickly as it had come, the shadow faded, but its aftermath still lingered quite loudly.

Real time came back to me, and everything moved at normal speed. _Oh, my God…what did I just do? _I thought again, staring at my hands. First in the water, as some freaky creature was attacking me, then as Lloyd was about to die—in both cases, a shadow that _I _had caused appeared. How was I doing that? What even was 'that'? I looked at Lloyd, and saw him staring in shock. His eyes met mine. Man, I could see his whole iris. Whatever I had done was definitely _not _normal.

Noel was just as scared, but he looked hungry. "It is true!" He yelled triumphantly. His laughter took on a more, er, _insane _note. "It's true!" A couple guffaws. "You are what Eloquim says! You are the Yin!"

"Tha…wha?" I blinked. "Yin?"

I looked down at my hands. It started with the prickling. No, it started with _danger. _When there was ultimate danger, I reacted by using my hands to…Did this have anything to do with the Eye on my hand? I looked at it now, having removed the gloves after Garmadon got hurt.

"The Yin of the Yang!" Noel yelled crazily. "You are Void!"

"Void?" Lloyd asked. As Noel cackled, he was conspicuously climbing up the dragon's bent legs. I felt the inside of me trembling. _What had I done? What's Void? And a Yin?_

Noel cackled, holding his stomach and bending with his one good arm. "Void! It is worse than Aether, which is chaos and darkness! You—you are _worse, _girl! Void is—is even darker and edgier than your average Darkness. It involves erasing things from existence, whether via black hole, draining Life Energy, or simply making them cease to be! You have no opposing element! You always win! BAHAHAHAHA! Eloquim, what a crazy creature—you were _right! _MAWWAHANANAHAHAHAHHFFFFFFFFFFFFF? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Lloyd reached me atop the dragon as Noel collapsed in a fit of laughter. He looked into my eyes, examining the fear there, and the misunderstanding, and the confusion, and touched my cheek lightly with his fingertips. "We'll figure this out when we get home, Seiko," he said softly, urgently. "But we _have _to go. _Now. _Hyah!"

The dragon's liftoff was jerky, but it carried us towards the top of the mountain quicker than the average jog. I focused on controlling my breathing. Aether. Chaos. Darkness. Void? I was Void? I could _erase things from existence? _Is that how, with the pitch-black shadow I'd created, the shuriken had just disappeared when it passed through it? How in God's name was I able to do that? Clutching onto Garmadon's corpse, I tried to make sense of what was happening, but really it wasn't doing me any good. I looked at Lloyd when he turned around to look at me.

"It's gonna be okay," he promised, and held my hand.

_~Yang~_

The portal was a swirling blue, constantly moving in a counterclockwise motion. The sky above it was full of clouds and darkness, the sky destroyed by storms that rocked us through the air. Heavy wind whipped my hair into my face. Thunder cracked across the sky. I looked down on it, moving my dragon to hover so I could get a good view. Surrounded by rocks, the portal was narrow, but my dragon gave a squawk of approval. He tucked in his wings. The pool looked like it could fit a dragon, but down a ways. We'd have to dive quickly inwards if we wanted to make it into the real world. Holding onto Seiko's hand tightly, making sure I never let her go, I pictured Kai's face in my mind. _I'll be home soon, _I promised him mentally. My heart responded warmly.

"Hold on!" I told Seiko, and she blinked. God, she looked scared. I would've been, too, if I were in her situation. "Down, boy!" I yelled in command. The golden dragon, with a howl, began to dive. My hair was pushed from my face. Seiko buried hers in my shoulder so she wouldn't have to see. My stomach soared upwards while the rest of us went down, but I held my own, sure that there was light at the end of the tunnel. Speaking of which, the bright, luminescent blue of the portal was close enough to taste now. The dragon roared in warning.

We dove into the beautiful light, where at last, moments later, we'd be home.

* * *

**Yay for Ninja reuniting/Void powers! ^-^ **I love Void. it's my favorite concept.

**SHOUT OUT TO NFAN FAN OF THE WEEK: STORIESAREMAGIC! **The NfaN really comes to life with this devoted fan, and it is the most wonderful honor to be an author and hear from people who take your books so seriously. I love it. Keep 'em comin', S.A.M!

**NfaN Burning Fan Question of the Day: What was your favorite part of this chapter?**

**NFAN CONTEST COMING SOON! **Winning fan(s) will get a chance to read an **exclusive NFAN mini-story, **The Kingdom of Death 3.5, that centers around Rikku, Lou, Ed, and the rest trying to deal with the Ninja's memory loss, as well as what Kai's doing in jail, and the bonding time we never saw between Lloyd and Seiko! **Keep in touch for details this following chapter.**

**Please review! **And Go have a beautiful day, my beloved readers!


	12. Chapter 12

**CHAPTER TWELVE:  
**Bringing Out the Dead  
_~Yang~_

_It was a long, long time comin'_. Sticking into another realm for countless numbers of hours, slogging through the endless day as it rowed, continuously, through the river of life. Not to mention the millions of issues I'd had to overcome while inside—including one PMS-ing, insane prince, innumerable minotaurs attacking the young girl who accompanied me, a lethal injection of Devourer venom, and the death of my father. I was glad that my dad had reminded me about the portal connecting the Underworld to the Overworld, but I had plenty of questions about that. Noel had said he understood there was a portal, but Shadow Dancers couldn't re-enter the Underworld using Traveler's Tea; why didn't Noel just allow his subjects into the portal instead of using the Shadow Key, then? Lately, I've been having more questions than answers. Which is pretty typical, if you live in the world I do.

The portal we fell through was cold. I felt like my body was being dragged through broken glass and twigs and pointy objects like you wouldn't believe. Like the sting of winter and ice, it flew into my face, stinging my cheeks and nose and lips. I could feel the ache begin to burn, tricking me into believing I was warm when really, that was a lie. It reminded me, once, when I was young, running through Birchwood forest and falling flat to my face. I was so stunned from the cold that I laid there, buried by frost, until gentle hands had lifted me from the ground. I—I can't remember who had done it though. I was really small, that much I can remember; too small to be _able _to remember. But somehow, I had a memory of that moment. Whoever had helped me was defined by the ray of sunshine coming from the sun, blowing behind their head as to where their face was hidden. I kind of remember…Golden hair. Like mine. "_Is the boy okay?" _cooed a gentle, soft voice. At first, I thought it was Misako's, now when I thought about it, but it was too light, too pitched to be hers. _"Of course you are. You're so brave. Little Kyon…so brave…" _

_Kyon. _Who's Kyon? For some reason, it sounded really familiar, that name. Except I didn't know any Kyon; was that person referencing _me? _After thinking it, I immediately wanted to hit myself. No, my name was Lloyd, not Kyon. Still though, it echoed in my head even after the memory was gone.

The memory. Gone. Like that memory I'd given away of Kai to sacrifice for Seiko's protection. The portal was bringing out the dead in me. Pretty freaky to think about, but I felt the familiar prickle of reminder begin to ebb into my brain. _Memories…_memories I didn't know I had. Until now.

"_Oh, Garmadon! Isn't he wonderful? Our new little boy…_" Now, _that _was Misako's voice, still as deep as it was the last I'd heard her voice. Her face was less wrinkled, her skin stretched more fittedly over her high cheekbones. Her bark-colored hair fell down her shoulders rather than pulled into a braid. I found the memory-me looking up into her dark blue eyes, holding me, as behind her, the sky clouded over with gray stuffing. Dad looked over her shoulder, but he was younger. His hair was brown, his eyes red—it was when he was shrouded by Devourer's venom, like me. He looked angry. The wind blew his bangs into his face, shielding his eyes, forcing him to draw the collar of his leather jacket closer to him.

"_I don't trust that girl," _Garmadon said gruffly. _"Not one bit. Who would just give up their child like this?" _He jammed his hands into his pockets, glaring at something on the ground. I made a cooing noise that brought Misako to nuzzle my small chest with her nose.

"_She was sick, Garmadon," _said Misako without looking at him, instead staring at me with love in her eyes. "_She knew she couldn't take care of him."_

_Who? _I made a crying noise. Misako tried to quietly shush me, but that was when I whirled in her arms, reaching for something on the ground. That was when, for the first time I'd ever seen this memory, my eyes rested on the fallen, limp form of Caroline, still and dead. Dismay hit the real me, but the memory me reached for her, screaming in wordless sound. _CAROLINE?! _I cried for her, but Misako only pulled me back. _"No, baby," _she whispered, burying her face in my small shoulder. I kicked, but it was useless. _"I'm your momma now. Shh, baby. We'll take care of you…say bye-bye." _

_Caroline? _CAROLINE WAS MY _MOTHER? _

No…It couldn't be.

In my screams, the pound of feet made my childish head snap up, facing the two dark forms running down the cobblestones towards us. One was a tall boy, covered by a white button down, loosely fitting, underneath brown trousers with suspenders. His long, wavy brown hair was pulled away from his face in a ponytail. The other boy was shorter, with medium-length, pin-straight white-blonde hair, wearing a long gray overcoat that reached his ankles. It flew behind him, unbuttoned, while beneath he wore practically the same thing as the other boy. I recognized them both; the similar, icy blue eyes, straight noses, and full pink lips with angular cheekbones.

Zane and Rikku.

I'd never seen Zane so…old fashioned. It freaked me out. Taken aback, I stared at them with a cry; as a child, I'd recognized them too. I screamed and reached for them as they approached, both staring in disbelief at Caroline's collapsed form and me, screaming for them. _"Carolyne!" _Zane cried, and dropped down next to her. He wrapped his arm under her neck and legs, looking at me with wide eyes.

_"Are you the father?" _asked Misako. I blinked.

Zane looked startled. I cried for him. _"Naaa!" _I wailed, but Zane looked away.

_"I…No." _Zane lifted Caroline's limp form into his arms, Rikku jogging up behind them as he stood. I wailed for them both, but it was like no one could hear me. Misako struggled to hold me, since I was a writhing mess. She kept telling me to calm, but it was like _I _couldn't hear _her. _Garmadon looked at me with a thick glare, like he hated me or something.

_"Do you know her?" _Misako asked brightly. Zane and Rikku exchanged glances.

_"Yes," _Zane said finally. He looked at me apologetically.

_"She seemed very sick," _Misako commented. She shifted me uncomfortably in her arms.

_"Sick?" _Rikku asked. Misako nodded.

"_She died right there," _Misako said. I screamed.

_"DIED?!" _Zane repeated incredulously. He looked flabbergasted, bewildered by pain, but Rikku gave him a sharp glare. The older brother slapped him hard on the arm. Something flew between them, some kind of hidden message I wasn't aware of. Realizing whatever the memorandum was, Zane instantly calmed. It confused me, but still the younger me screamed for them.

_"We must leave," _Rikku informed Misako and Garmadon monotonically. I shrieked. _"Thank you for taking the child from Carolyne. We are blessed that he will have such a happy family."_

Zane looked to his brother, some hidden fear in his eyes. _"What about Danielle?" _He whispered. _"He isn't Carolyne's to give away." _

Not…Caroline's to give away? Danielle? Who was Danielle?

_"Wait!" _Zane halted Misako and Garmadon, who were starting to turn away with me in their custody. I stopped my screaming to look hopefully at him. _"But that baby, he isn't—He's not Carolyne's. Please, don't take him—"_

_"Zane!" _hissed Rikku. He glared at his younger brother in anger, but Zane only held Caroline in his arms, where she never moved.

_"No, please," _insisted the one I knew as a nindroid, with desperation in his eyes. _"That boy—Kyon, Father called him—you cannot take him. He belongs to Carolyne's sister, Danielle. Danielle died, and—and Carolyne did not believe that there was way to care for him, but—"_

_"You want to take him back?" _Misako asked. She sounded heartbroken.

_"No, we don't," _Rikku said flatly. His face was cold as he glared at Zane, speaking to Misako and Garmadon through it. _"You can have him." _

Zane gasped. _"No, please—"_

_"TAKE. THE. FLIPPING. CHILD." _Rikku shoved Zane back and looked at Misako. The younger me began to wail again. _"Take it! NOW!" _

The last of the memory cut off, but it left me cold. I'd never remembered that part of—of anything before. Earlier today, Dad had said something about taking me, didn't he? Is this what he meant by it? Taking me from Caroline—who was giving me away? Danielle, my real mother, Caroline's sister—I wasn't actually the son of Lord Garmadon, was I?

The Eye burned. _I had to show you this memory, for I have kept it secret until now. Danielle is your mother, _it whispered as we neared the end of the portal, its crescendo arriving with a bright pound of light, _and she is a witch. You are her son, Lloyd—Kyon von Teufel. And you are a witch, too._

I felt some kind of unlocking within me. Like I was letting go of something I'd been holding onto for a really, really long time. The thousand ton weight that held me down—that held me _back—_was let go, falling into darkness at the same moment the dragon burst through the portal and into the real, fresh air of Ninjago. Beneath us, Ninjago City greeted us with millions of florescent, bright lights in the dark of the night. People stopped on the sidewalks to look up at the strange thing that had just happened in the sky; a golden dragon had burst out of nowhere. But the ton that I had been holding disappeared, and my shoulders felt lighter. My soul wasn't as heavy. I wasn't being held back anymore.

_Danielle is my mom, _I thought incredulously.

And that was the key.

My arms suddenly began to glow a bright shade of green, my skin turning almost transparent. I began to radiate the color. I felt so light, it almost consumed me; I stood on the back of the dragon, extending my arms, feeling the explosion take place within me. Seiko gasped in surprise. The green rays penetrated the darkness of the sky. My dragon cried with triumphance, and my body hummed, the whistle of true potential coming from inside of me. Seiko looked up at me with dismay.

"L-Lloyd? What's happening?" She trembled, but she didn't need to look so scared. I tilted back my head. I didn't think that I would reach true potential, except now I knew the answer to that. The cry of the dragon roared through Ninjago City, which admittedly scared some people, but the majority recognized him. I looked down at him and then at Seiko, with my true potential still burning from my body. I felt consumed by heat and by ice, by strength and electricity. I was—I was _wowed. _The light feeling of my body was amazing. So free…

I grabbed Seiko's hand, pulling her up. I looked at the dragon. "Take my father to a hospital," I commanded him, and he growled in response. I pulled her closer to me. "We have things to do."

"What are you _talking _about, Snickerdoodles?" She snapped, and tried to shove off me, but I held her tighter. Annoyed, Seiko gave me a face. She held onto me, and I felt that rush of tranquility course through my veins again. I didn't know how she did it, but she helped me.

Through the glow of my true potential, I smiled. Just to catch her off guard, I bent down and swept her off her feet, holding her like a child in my arms. I enjoyed the scream of surprise and the quick clasp of her hands behind my neck. When her fingertips brushed where my hair met my skin, I shivered. "Hold on tight," I said. Double checking that I had a good grip on her, I moved to the edge of the dragon, hovering above the city as below, a crowd had gathered to speculate. "When you're done, boy," I told him, "come find me. You'll know where I am." The dragon roared. I peered over the edge and smiled at Seiko, whose crystal blue eyes were too wide for her face. "Holding on tightly?" I asked.

"In your dreams," Seiko grumbled. I laughed.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," I told her. With a burst of confidence, my true potential propelling me outwards, I took one defiant step forward—and jumped.

* * *

**LLOYD **discovered his true potential! Even though we all thought he never would, it became true when he realized that Dani was his mommy. ^-^ I can't wait for them to finally meet. We'll hear more about Lloyd's thoughts on that once he's done doing what he's about to do. XD

**Burning Fan Question Today: How do you think Lloyd will react to meeting Danielle?**

**THE NFAN CONTEST:**

**The gist **is that whoever wants to enter will have to create a scenario-based drawing, poem, song, fiction, ETC. about an NfaN moment that they want to see. This is not limited to that, however. For example, If you're an NfaN fan, and you love to draw, you can draw a "scene" of NfaN that you would love to see happen. (which could be posted **via deviantart,** unless you have another way for people to view it.) You can make a poem out of it, or a song, play, or fiction off your FanFiction account, or any other way you can think of. **Yes, i give you permission to write a fiction off of NfaN as long as you CLEARLY STATE THAT THE NIGHTMARES FOR A NINJA SERIES BELONGS TO ME. **All you have to do is write a story, poem, play, whatever about something that _you,_as a fan, would love to have happen. The rules? These scene(s) that you create **must **somehow involve either a villain that has been seen in NfaN/ NINJAGO television series(meaning no random evil lord popping out of nowhere) or an original important character. The listing of who you can choose from is: **Eloquim, Noel, Brad, Caroline, Pythor & any other villain of NINJAGO, Danielle, Rikku, or Seiko.** What you create **can **have the Ninja or their allies in it. ^-^ Am not kicking them out of the field, here. They should be in it, too. **It can be funny, serious, sad, heartwrenching, suspenseful, angsty, intense-ANYTHING! **All emotions to story is welcome!

**What you create **(whether it be a fiction, drawing, poem, ETC.) **does ****_not _****have to be written perfectly.** It **doesn't** need to involve deep descriptions like I do. It can be simply submitted as a play format, which is like  
KAI: (whatever he says)  
ELOQUIM: (whatever he says) *an action he commits within these star things*  
THAT's what I mean. You guys **don't **need to go all out detail, but **if you want to **feel free. ^-^ I think that might've made some of you go WHEW! I'm not very good at doing descriptions! Or, Yes! I love making plays! It's completely fine.

I want to get you guys involved! Fan input is my favorite. **ZaneWalker **gave me an idea a couple books back that we **will **be seeing within the next few chapters. I love putting in fans' ideas! Your brilliance is accepted! Don't be shy to give me your input, it's all accepted!

**The prize? **The winner gets their idea used in NfaN, but **all participants will get to read an exclusive NfaN story, The Kingdom of Death 3.5! **That was the initial prize, but then I realized, I think everyone who enters should get a prize for at least doing something!

I really can't wait to see what you all come up with! **You can start now! **X3 **Please, I would love to see you guys do it. I don't care if you're a good writer or drawer or whatever,** all you have to do is make a play or a song about how much you love NfaN (that is acceptable. instead of writing a scene, you can write a song or poem about how much you love it or whatever) or a drawing. (drawings accepted via DeviantArt or another method you can think of, like a photobucket link or whatever you wanna do :3) or ANYTHING else you can think of! If you love singing, post the song on youtube and send the link! Whatever! **I'm excited **to see what you come up with! Contest opens now!

**please participate! Give me your ideas! Get involved! No idea will be turned down!**

**There may be multiple winners! **some of you may have such awesome ideas that I couldn't choose! Heck, maybe _all _of you could win... *le gasp* You never know!

***you have been granted permission to legally use my characters in your own fictions as long as the rights/copywrites/credit goes to KairiVenomus for the characters. This is not saying you can have them. This is saying you can use them. Songs, poems, "play like" fictions and everything else can be submitted via or another source, as long as I receive the link to it. **

**ANY QUESTIONS? **Tell in a review or PM!

Honestly, guys; I really am excited. Please participate. *Think of Uncle Sam: I want YOU to participate in this contest! ^-^ PLEASE! XD

As always, go have an AWESOME day/night, and I can't wait for your submissions! (which you can tell me where they are after you submit them via PM or reviews.)

Love, Kairi V. ^-^


	13. Chapter 13

**Confirmed! **

**Jay Vincent, composer of Ninjago, stated that there will be at least EIGHT NEW EPISODES TO NINJAGO SEASON 3 premiering in late 2013 and early 2014! EEK! He ALSO said there will be more Nindroids! GAH! Wouldn't it be freaky if my idea of the "clockwork army" and all the nindroids I made and stuff came REAL?! I'd die *explode***

* * *

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN:  
**In the Horizon

_"You're kidding, Sensei. _Not to be disrespectful, but I can't stay in the same household as _her." _Kai jammed his thumb in Maya's direction, few paces behind him, speaking in soft tones into her cell phone. The sky had gone a deathly shade of black, Ninjago City's aura of neon advertisement their only guide. He kept his head down. Standing on the outskirts, Kai could just see into Ninjago City's heart, but if he went into the actual city, he'd probably get mauled by police personnel. The newsflash for the escaped "murderer" was all over town; his face was posted on high screens and in the frames of stores' windows. He was everywhere. There wasn't a spot in Ninjago that Kai Smith wouldn't be posted to.

Sensei paused on the outskirts, staring inside. He ignored Kai completely. Instead, he found entertainment in watching the schools of people moving across the sidewalks even _this _late at night. They were too far away to see him, yet close enough to be able to; Kai fidgeted uncomfortably as they waited in the shadows for Maya to finish up her stupid phone call. He threw a glare at her dark form behind him, crimson hair and pale skin the only part of her visible in this darkness. He didn't know who she was talking to, but whoever it was had to be stupid for wanting to talk to her. It was irritating that Wu was actually giving her the gift of privacy. Kai couldn't stand the idea of being within _spitting _distance of that chick, much less _living _with her. God, it _was _Garmadon all over again; he really needed to stop reliving his life.

There was a loud clap. Kai turned around to see Maya slapping her phone against her leg. With a quick turn, she gave him and Wu a sly smile. "Edna is on her way to buy bleach," she said. "By the time we get to the house, she should be back."

"Bleach?" Kai asked skeptically. "What's the bleach for? Why were you calling Edna?"

Wu looked emotionless with a slow blink. Kai felt a little worried at what was taking him so long to respond. "You cannot stay the same, Kai," softly said his mentor. "You are too recognizable."

"Wait…please tell me you're not thinking what I'm thinking you're thinking," Kai said in dread. He shook his head. _No. Way. _"You are _not _touching my hair," he protested. "No way."

"Do you wanna get caught, Spiky?" Maya cocked her head. Kai could've snarled at the haughty way her hips tilted to the side, the way she leaned back like a cobra ready to strike. "Or would you rather just cut it and get everything all fixed before someone figures out your little escapade scheme?"

"But—!" Kai didn't want to admit it, but she was right. You wouldn't ever hear that come out of his mouth, though. He turned away, clenching his jaw. _Oh, man, Kai, _he thought to himself, _what did you get yourself into? _Facing the city that burned brightly in the horizon, he knew that if he wanted to stay free—and alive—he'd have to do it. Wouldn't the police be expecting that, though? Wouldn't they be looking for him, doing certain special-computer-effect-thingys to alter his appearance, showing the public what he'd look like with different hairstyles?

"No arguing," Maya said, and whipped out her phone again. The screen's brightness reflected off her face, showing shadows to the already dark contours of her expression. She didn't look at him as she typed something into her keypad. "I spent fifty-five bucks on a good pack of eye contacts. They're violet, just so you know."

"_Violet? _Why?"

"Because according to this website," Maya said, and held out her phone for him to take. Kai reluctantly pulled the smartphone out of her hand to look at the website—the official website for Ninjago Convicts. _Oh. Great. _"The eye color they think you're most likely going for is blue, because it's the farthest color from your pretty brown irises now." Using his thumb, Kai scrolled down the informational page all about what he would be wearing, the disguises, the way he talked. _Geez, _he thought, _they're _obsessed _with finding me. _There were multiple pictures already of what he would look like with different hairstyles, all tacked onto his mug shot. He winced.

"But isn't violet pretty similar to blue?" He asked, passing Maya her phone. She swiftly captured it out of his hand.

"Which is why I bought you golden ones instead of violet," she said, charmed by her phone again. Kai's mouth twisted into a half frown.

"But you just said—"

"'Cause you're fun to mess with," Maya looked up at him with a less-than-charming smile. Kai rolled his eyes. He scowled into the vision of Ninjago City before him. He didn't think he'd survive staying with Maya for _any _length of time. He'd thought _Garmadon _was bad; try a psychotic bitch intent on stealing one of his best friends. He was sure of it, that Maya would try _something _to get Cole while he was vulnerable. She had to. She was insaner than insane. He looked at the colored lights radiating from the city's outline, and gave a heavy sigh. This trip had lasted them all afternoon; Sensei said that there would be a car to pick them up. So where was this car, anyway? Shouldn't it have arrived by now?

There was a loud explosion of noise that consumed the city, like a vibrating guitar string the size of the world. The hum hurt Kai's ears. He turned to Sensei, who looked unfazed. "What's that noise?" He asked loudly.

"Look," his teacher said simply. Kai frowned, but turned his head to where Sensei had nodded.

The sky above the city looked normal at first, like it usually did at night. Then Kai actually saw the way the sky looked like it was _moving. _As though it were a river's flow, it began to bend, shake slowly, until the vibrating noise made a loud _bang. _Kai winced and took a step back.

The golden dragon burst out of nothing.

Kai jumped at the loud shriek that came from its scream, a shout of defiance. It's large, tremendous golden wings flapped through the air in one large huff of movement. That was _Lloyd's _dragon. "LLOYD!" Kai yelled when he saw the golden form on the back of the large beast. There was someone else with him, but Kai could barely see who it was; his heart had begun to pound quicker than it ever had before. It was Lloyd! Lloyd was home! Kai found himself beginning to laugh as the golden dragon started soaring through the sky, giving loud shouts. _I won! _It seemed to say, _I made it! _It howled with happiness. The people on the streets fell to the ground in fear, while some of them pointed. Kai couldn't contain the happiness bursting out of him. _Lloyd! _The kid was okay!

"Sensei! Lloyd made it!" Kai cried.

Sensei smiled. "I knew he would," said the old man. Lloyd steered the dragon closer to the tops of the buildings, while people screamed in fear, but he seemed oblivious. God, Kai's heart had never thundered so fast before in his life. He was dizzy, high off of adrenaline. Lloyd had beaten the odds and returned from the Underworld, just like the hallucination-kid said. Had Garmadon made it? Did Garmadon show him the way out? Kai started to run forward, but Sensei caught his shoulder. "No, Kai," he said. Kai looked at him in dismay. "Look, not touch."

Kai's heart skipped a beat, but he looked at Lloyd again, content with just that for now. He found himself trying to identify the second body on the dragon's back, but he was drawing a blank. Who was that? It looked like a girl, but…

But _look. Oh, my God, Lloyd—what is he—what—_"Sensei!" Kai cried, pointing. "What's happening to Lloyd?!"

His body began to glow green. He was consumed by the color, a pillar of green light bursting from his form. The intensity of the glow made Kai hold up his arm to stop it from blinding him; people below looked shocked. Lloyd got to his feet, holding out his arms, his body encased by a beautiful jade. Electricity, ice, fire, and earth swirled around him, and Kai suddenly recognized what was happening.

"His true potential!" Kai shouted. Sensei smiled. "He's reached his true potential!"

Lloyd's body glowed even as he turned around and yanked up his passenger. Kai watched him haul the girl into his arms, swinging her into the air with him. He looked down over the edge of the hovering dragon, confident, cocky, and his skin glowing green. _I knew when I had to make a choice, _Kai remembered, the thought coming into his brain suddenly.

_You are the best you._

_I know who I am!_

_His relationship with his father must've been holding him back!_

Kai felt proud. Very, very, very proud. Cole, Jay, Zane, and Kai had reached their true potential long ago, but they'd always thought Lloyd didn't have one, because he was the Green Ninja. Maybe there was something that had been holding him back after all. But what?

Kai could ask him later. _I can't believe I can actually _say _that, _Kai thought with a laugh. _I can say that now, because he's home, and I'm gonna see him soon. Just like he promised, I will see him soon. _He looked up into the sky, watching Lloyd say something to the girl he held in his arms. He was dying to see her face, but more, he was dying to see _Lloyd's _face. He looked at Sensei. Maya had wandered up beside the old man. "Is this the famous Green Ninja I've been hearing so much about?" she asked.

Sensei nodded once. "My nephew," he said softly. "I have missed him."

"_You've _missed him?" Kai repeated with an incredulous laugh. He looked to the dragon again. "_I've _missed him!"

And then Lloyd did something stupid.

He jumped.

"LLOYD!" Kai shouted, reaching forward, but Sensei grabbed his arm. Lloyd fell, feet first, with the girl in his arms screaming, through the air. "Sensei—he jumped! He's going to die!" Lloyd disappeared behind a building, and this time, Kai's heart beat with fear. What was he _thinking? _Was he _trying _to kill himself? Oh, God, Lloyd was going to splat across the concrete. He was doomed. So, so doomed. "No!"

"He will land!" Sensei shouted loudly to get Kai's attention. He whirled on his teacher. The intensity of Wu's gaze burned holes into Kai's body. "He is stronger than you know, Kai. Lloyd's feet will touch the ground safely. You need not worry. Meanwhile, I must intercept him. You and Maya must get in the car that comes to pick you up, and I will get Lloyd. You must light two candles in the windowsill when you arrive. Understood?" Wu raised his artificial eyebrows.

Kai squinted as though he was staring into the sun. "Why not three? Aren't you coming?"

Wu tilted his head to the side thoughtfully before shaking it. "I have another task to fulfill. Danielle ordered me to do so after I had retrieved you," he said softly. Before Kai could protest, he went on. "In the morning, after Lloyd has gathered his rest, you will flee to the monastery. When you get home, use the items as prepared for you to alter your appearance. Keep everyone awake until I return. You will find an old friend in the backyard of Misako's home, Kai. I think you will be happy to see him. Oh! Before I forget." Sensei reached into the pocket of his traditional kimono, digging for something as he'd dug for the vial. He pulled out a small black box, passing it to Kai. He took it slowly from his fingers, weary. Not like Sensei would give him a mini bomb or anything, but he wasn't sure what to expect.

He gently lifted the lid. Inside was a small, rectangular chip, encoded with small wires and green databases that Kai would never understand. He squinted again. "What's this?" He asked.

"Zane's memory chip," Wu responded. Kai looked up in surprise. "I retrieved it from the _Bounty's _remains in the desert. You must show that to your brothers. I hope it will help them gather back some of their memories." The wistful tone Sensei's voice had taken on made Kai's heart shrivel and die. He'd forgotten that Sensei, though a robot, still cared about his students. "Show them once you get home, after you've changed your appearance completely. You must be tired, but your brothers are used to nightly tests before bed." Sensei rubbed his hand on his staff. He looked upset. Kai didn't really know what to say.

"Thanks, Sensei," he said at last. "For everything."

"Do not thank me, Kai," said Wu. His emotionless robotic demeanor returned after a couple of blinks. "I am doing my duty. That is all."

Kai opened his mouth to protest, but there was the sound of tires against dirt that stopped him. He turned his head to find a sleek black car pulling up the hill. Kiko twisted her hips. "Finally," she said lowly. Crossing her arms over her chest, she looked at Kai with her black eyes. Then, she smiled.

Kai curled hi lip and turned to Sensei, but the old man was gone. "What the—where did he go?" Kai gasped. Maya pointed down the ravine, where the old man was already coming upon the edge of Ninjago City. _How did he move so fast? _Kai thought in dismay just as the car pulled to a stop beside him.

Turning, he watched a smile play on Maya's lips. The passenger's window slowly rolled down. "Get in, will you? We've got no time to waste," said the driver. Kai bent to see it was Rikku, who looked royally pissed off. Maya slipped into the passenger's seat while Kai jumped into the back.

"What bit your ass?" Maya asked as Kai closed the door, sending Rikku into a slam of the gas. The tires squealed angrily. He was jerked back against the seat in Rikku's furious attempt to peel outta the place.

Rikku's jaw clenched and unclenched. His knuckles were white gripping the wheel. "Zane thinks that he's in love with Dani," he said through his teeth. Kai recoiled at the anger he saw in the robot's eyes. They flashed with solidity.

"Oooh," Maya breathed, and put her heels on the dashboard. "That should be fun."

"No."

"Sarcasm."

"I realize that."

Kai leaned forward. The outside went by in quick blurs. Rikku was driving very, _very _fast. If he wasn't precise, the slightest misconception could send them into a crash. A sharp turn sent Kai flying against the door. "Ow," he grumbled, then quickly recovered. "What's the big deal about it?" Kai asked. Not that it wasn't a big deal, but he didn't see why it was so angering.

Rikku's jaw clenched again. "Eloquim screwed with Zane's memories," he growled. "He erased everything, but replaced all of the parts where Caroline belonged with Dani."

"So?"

_"SO, _Kai," Rikku slammed his fist against the steering wheel, making the fire ninja jump and Maya jerk away, "it means that Zane isn't the only one who had his memory fucked up by Eloquim. That bastard has completely _swapped _everyone's memories in the wrong direction. He made Jay think that _his _parents are Misako and Garmadon, and that _he's _capable of destroying the world. He made Cole believe that his vampirism makes it _okay _to torture people, and put Seiko in the—" His voice cut off. Kai stared into the rearview mirror at the flash of Rikku's eyes. "He made Cole believe that Seiko is his wife. He made him think that it's _okay _to start chewing on the people you love. And Nya—"

"What about Nya?" Kai jumped. Oh, God, _what did he do to Nya?! _

"Nya thinks," Rikku moaned, "Nya thinks that _Lloyd _is the father of her baby."

"How do you know this?" Maya leaned forward, staring coldly through her bangs at Rikku. Meanwhile, Kai clenched his fists. _That bastard, _he thought. He was going to bring that damn creature back from the dead just so he could _kill him _again.

Rikku flexed his fingers on the wheel. "Dani did a spell earlier. It helped them open the vessels to their minds. She spoke the names of the people they loved, showed them their pictures, and asked them what they knew of them. I mean, we've always known Cole likes to chew on people, which is what she's here for." He nodded at Maya. "But when a picture of Misako and Garmadon came up, Jay snapped his fingers and said 'Those are my parents!' and said something about being so powerful, he could destroy everything. When Dani held up Seiko's picture, Cole said 'That's my wife,' but then looked surprised, like he hadn't known it until then. Dani then held a picture of Lloyd, and Nya murmured 'Daddy' and touched her belly. It was when Dani arrived earlier that Zane 'remembered' he loved her. Eloquim _completely erased their memories, _Kai," Rikku said, sounding pained. Kai leaned back against the seats. "He didn't just make them forget they had them, like normal mind-erasing works. Usually, they just make you forget you have those memories. But Eloquim—" He took a deep breath, staring out the windshield and shaking his head. "Eloquim completely took all those memories away. And now, I think it's safe to say that every single last one of us is fricking _screwed." _

* * *

**_Wow. _**

Okay, guys, so don't forget the **NfaN Contest IS IN SESSION **and you can submit **anytime! **

**Please **review, and go have an AWESOME day/night!

~Kairi


	14. Chapter 14

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN:  
**Bittersweet  
~_Yin~_

_I was fricking screwed. _

I screamed the whole way down. Snickerdoodles was such an _insane _bastard, wasn't he? Jumping off a giant, flying abomination like that—! How typical! God, was he stupid? What kind of idiot did that? I held tightly onto him, my hair flying up above me as he glowed green like a cucumber on crack. He was some kind of weird, psychotic alien from another indigenous dimension. Then again, this is the same boy who conjured up giant dragons and could shoot strange elements from his body. Somehow, I think I had a tougher time believing that he glowed than any of that. I know, dumb, right? I'd sooner believe it if he told me _that _first. My heart traveled into my throat with my many, many screams. We were going to splat all over the ground right there. What a wonderful way to die.

Holding onto him, my scream disappeared as suddenly, from the ground, a humungous rock shot towards us. Then I screamed again, because, _ohmygod look at that a giant rock just came out of nowhere._ It was like a mountain instantly rising from the sky. My gasp was caught in my throat. Lloyd used it as a means of propelling us off of it; his feet grabbed tightly onto a divot on the rock that was born out of the concrete—the same rock, mind you, that caused sixty accidents on the ground underneath us. The screams of the people below, plus the sound of crashing cars, made me feel awful. We'd just killed people.

But then again, I'd done so with my bare hands before. Who was I to talk?

With a huge leap of intense muscles and serious body strength, Lloyd went all Spider Man on me and jumped back into the air, his feet finding a telephone cord stretched between two buildings. I was sure that he was gonna slip and fall, but somehow, he kept his footing. It was probably something to do with the 'ninja' part of all this. A crack of blue lightning spread from beneath his feet, and in an instant, we were on the ground. Wait, not the ground. It was covered in ice. _Ice! _Lloyd started sliding across it the second his feet hit it. With a gentle, steady movement, Lloyd set me on the icy river underneath us, which appeared on the sidewalk, interfering with plenty of people's paths. The instant my feet touched the slippery surface, I grabbed onto his arm in bewilderment, trying to figure out how he moved so gracefully when, technically, his feet weren't moving at all.

"Lloyd!" I gasped, my feet slipping across the ice awkwardly. As people moved out of the way with their own little shrieks of fear, Lloyd used one hand to create more for the icy trail in front of us. He looked back at me and laughed. "It's not funny! I'm slipping!" I squealed. God, this was _awful. _Lloyd tilted back his head and laughed again, and completely _turned _around on the ice to face me. He was sliding _backwards. _And that icy road he'd made only went so far. "Lloyd! Turn around, idiot!" I screamed. At the same moment, he reached out both of his hands, eyes laughing as they clasped around mine. The warmth of his touch brought my skin on fire and my heart into a frenzy. _Seiko, you idiot, knock it off. _I'd gone soft enough when babying Lloyd in the Underworld after Garmadon died. At the brush of his fingers across my skin, I had to stop mentally freaking out. It was a stupid concept, really. I didn't _need _to die inside every time he touched me, did I? No. So _man the hell up, _I thought sharply. But it was easier said than done.

Lloyd laughed at me. Really laughed. I'd never heard the noise come out of his throat before, completely consumed in happiness or anything. It was a wow moment. I watched him tilt back his head and guffaw with amazement pure to my face. "It's easy! Like you're skating!" He said, and I shook my head. It was harder to keep my feet from disappearing beneath me and my sanity from plummeting.

"I've never skated before!" I said. And not at all had I pictured the first experience like this: Me, holding the hands of the Green Ninja, skating on an icy road that _he _made in the middle of a sidewalk in Ninjago City. Yeah. No. If I had pictured it like that the first time, my expectations would've been _extremely _high. Which, they were not. I held tighter to Lloyd when my feet practically kicked underneath me.

"_Never?" _He repeated in shock, his eyes widening a little. "Not even as a kid?"

"My childhood isn't really a reminiscent of awesome superiority," I admitted.

_"That's the Green Ninja!" _shouted someone. Lloyd's brow rose irritably without ever taking his eyes from mine. Underneath the street lamps, his face was shadowed unusually, intervals of light coming from each burst of bulbs in separate spotlights.

"You never catch a break around here," he breathed crossly.

I had to roll my eyes, accompanied by a scoff, trying to cover up with my embarrassing inability to skate. "You're pretty famous," I told him. I guess that was the key word, because Lloyd grinned, the irritation suddenly gone. He held tighter onto my hands, making my pulse spike.

"Of course I am," he said, and pulled me closer, skating with him. I tried not to get a little agitated by that kind of action. His eyes were still red, and he was still an asshole, but somehow, I was becoming accepting of that state. He was still the same guy, wasn't he? From what Garmadon said, it wasn't _his _fault—the real Twinkies was in there somewhere, hidden beneath all this…Snickerdoodles façade. "I'm the coolest guy on earth."

"I wouldn't go _that _far," I eyeballed him, but I was smiling. His blonde hair whipped into his face, and mine into my own, absurdly hitting my bangs _away _from my face, which I couldn't stand. I _needed _them in front of my right eye. If they weren't, I'd probably die with the awfulness of it. I ducked my head to keep him from seeing anything he shouldn't. Except, Snickerdoodles was a persistent bastard. I should've thought of that first.

"Wait," he murmured, and I hated it. "Don't do that. I wanna see." He let go of one of my hands to reach for my chin, his fingers gently clasping the tender skin beneath my jaw between his thumb and forefinger. _How much ice is there, anyway? _I thought angrily, and tried to jerk away. "Seiko, don't fight me. You'll lose."

"Don't fight _me. _You won't be able to have kids _or _use the restroom. What's worse?" I snapped. I yanked myself out of his grasp. I hated having both eyes visible, hated it when people could see all of me. It was my curtain; without it, I was just a window, and that wasn't acceptable.

I was more focused on making sure my eye was covered than to pay attention to the world ahead of me. The sudden stop ahead made my sliding feet still want to slide, even though there was concrete instead of frozen water. I saw the end of the icy path too late. Snickerdoodles had had the chance to step off, but I ironically didn't. Like the klutz I was, I went flying forward, gonna smack my face on the ice and make a fool of myself. I gasped.

His arms wrapped around me before I could fall, righting me with the strength of someone who looked like they shouldn't _be _strong, but was. He pulled me closer than I would've considered socially acceptable. So close, in fact, I could almost feel the body heat rolling off his abdomen. The guy was like six feet, and I was only five-seven. I had to crane my neck to properly look up at him, into his red eyes that normally freaked me out but now held me tranquil. Lloyd's hands grabbed onto mine, and before I could stop him his thumbs exploring further up my arms with a pretty bold performance. They skimmed over the thin pink scars over both my wrists. The eternal reminders of my self-destructive behavior. He looked down at them, quiet, his eyebrows furrowing. He didn't say anything, but I could practically hear his thoughts channeled out his mind. People usually had that reaction when they saw the cuts. The majority of them stared at me funny. But Lloyd only raised his eyes back to mine with parted lips, not of question, but more of _understanding. _Normally, that's not what I saw. This was kind of an awkward place to be having a moment, in the middle of a sidewalk with a buncha angry people yelling at us, but for the time being, it was like…I didn't care. I was okay with whatever attention I was given, whether it be bad or good. Lloyd reached up slowly with his left hand, tentative as not to scare me, like I was some kind of wild animal about to blow. I stood, a frozen deer in headlights, as his fingertips skimmed the tender skin over my forehead, dragging with them my bangs from my eyes. I closed them. I didn't want him to see, but at the same time, I did. I was conflicted. We were two people, frozen in time, while others moved around us and said things and lived life while we, just randomly standing here, stared at each other in awe. My heart was all I could hear. I told myself not to let him get close, but it was like I told myself those things just to hear them, because every time I gave myself a command I ignored it. Was that stupidity, or just me being Seiko Mitsuhide?

I peeked at him to see his reaction. Lloyd looked at the half of my face that was normally hidden. I watched his red eyes grow soft, something within him changing at the sight of my whole face. He breathed in the view of the small birthmark across my cheekbone, the one that looked like a curved, upside-down tear. His thumb dragged across it as though to wipe it away, but you couldn't do that. The trail it made left my skin tingling where he touched; the sensations rippling through my body made my heart echo in my ears and my face heat, even though I'd been told before that I can't blush anymore. Lloyd's lips parted. "Like a Yin," he murmured softly. "It's a definite sign."

"Sign of…what?" I whispered. I held my breath. God, he was so close, it was making me both uncomfortable and impatient. I hated and loved it all at once.

"That you're special," Lloyd whispered back. _Special? Me? _No. That was ridiculously thought. He rubbed my scars again, using one hand to push my bangs completely out of my face. "There," he softly breathed, "that's _much _better." He was still touching me. Still touching me, and I hadn't ripped his head off yet. Usually, people were killed if they touched me. He was probably the longest lasting victim I had yet. Lloyd tucked my hair behind my ear, moving his hand through and towards my throat, brushing my thin hair to my other shoulder so he could cup the back of my neck. My heart thundered so badly, I was sure he could hear it. _What are you doing? _I wanted to ask, but the words were caught in my throat. Lloyd's eyes traveled from mine to my mouth, and I began to shake. _No. _I couldn't do this. No, I couldn't. Not as much as I could've wanted to. Not as he was starting to slowly lean down, right here in the middle of the street, with people staring at us and a million accidents happening at once. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, did I mention _no. _I couldn't do this. If I did…

…that would mean it was one more person I'd end up hurting.

And I couldn't suffer through hurting him.

His hand maneuvered mine to wrap around his shoulder, somehow, with my daze stopping me from noticing. In my fear, my breathing had become too much for me to handle, too uneven. Lloyd's face was so close, it clouded my judgment. What I _wanted _to do was to let him kiss me, let him hold me, so I could feel safe again. But what I _knew _I should do told me to just let him go.

_But how many people have already let him go before? _said that weird, empty voice in my head that was a she-man. It scared me a little. _His brothers have had to let him go. Wouldn't it hurt him to know that you let him go, too? _

_I can't hurt him any more than I already have, _I thought flatly. And then I had to construct the most difficult action I'd ever have to organize.

I turned my head away.

"I—I can't," I gasped, and squeezed my eyes shut. It hurt me to have to do this, to have to turn him away. But I slowly brought my hand out from around his neck, untucked his from under my hair. Lloyd looked a little shocked to see me say no. I couldn't look at him, knowing that I'd probably hurt him doing just that. The bittersweet ache of my heart was familiar, albeit accepted. It was the same ache that forced me to create the slashes on my wrists, the tears in my eyes. I bit my lips between my teeth. "I-I'm sorry," I said softly, and looked at the scenery beside me instead. Some people were staring, but the majority of them were moving around under the intensity of the call of the sirens in the distance.

God. This was the hardest thing I'd ever had to do. But Lloyd released me, slowly reacting to me saying _no. _No, of all things. _No. _No! The word that made me feel pain. Two letters, a thousand meanings. How tragic.

"I…see," Lloyd said strangely. I wanted to look, but I didn't want to; I didn't want to see what was on his face. Hurt? Anger? Rage? Agony? I didn't think it was that last one, but he was unpredictable. Why did this have to be so hard? It was harder for me to breathe now than it was when I ran for four miles straight without stopping. Things would now be all awkward and strange, thanks to little Miss Seiko Mitsuhide. I hurt him. Wow. I was awesome.

"Lloyd!" yelled a voice in the distance, but it wasn't my voice. I turned around to see, in the crowd of watchers, a white kimono, a tipped hat to cover a face, and a bamboo staff. I frowned. Surely it wasn't _that _person who had said that, was it? I searched the dwindling crowd, but saw hardly anyone who could've yelled _his_ name. It had to be that weirdo…but who _was _that?

I didn't look at Lloyd. I still couldn't. I was way too ashamed for that. Maybe I didn't recognize the person, but he did. The caller raised his head at the same time I heard a small gasp come from Lloyd's throat. The old man's long beard tugged with a smile, and his wrinkled face reacted with _more _wrinkles and laugh lines, the crinkles at the edges of his eyes deepening. I'd never seen him before. But, like I said, Lloyd had.

"_Sensei?" _

* * *

**_^-^ No new announcements!_**

**Please** review, and go have a beautiful day/night! Love,

~Kairi


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: (iheartninjago2010-you've already read this. ^-^)**

_In regards to previous chapter:_

See, in the Ninjago fan base, so many fanfictions are about NinjaxOC shipping. That can get REALLY boring and REALLY irritating sometimes, right? When I create OCs, I** never, never make them for the purpose of pairing them with Ninja.** That is **never** the reason why I make them. Which is seen in Caroline's case—it looked like that, in the beginning, but Caroline was never made to fall for Zane. I NEVER do that. Ever. She was made to create issues, to become a part of the plot but not for that reason. You know what I mean? So when i initially created Seiko, she was** supposed** to be this insane little sister who would eventually sneak her way into the plot, to cause a little stresser point for Cole. Not to be an evil issue or anything, but to be the adorably annoying little sister that grew on people. By accident, Seiko kind of slipped into becoming more of a prominent character, someone who wasn't initially supposed to be there but happened anyway. She wasn't supposed to become as big a part as she plays now, but I fell in love with her. ^~^ her personality relates to a lot of readers, and she's just the comic relief of stressful situations, and plus she's even more interesting when she plays the insanity card. I mean, she's an "OC" who gets on the nerves of not just the Ninja, but also OTHER "OCs" as well. I baby her a lot (which I'm sure she hates) when I'm writing, because for me, it's easier to write from her POV cause everything she thinks, I get to write down. Seiko doesn't hide what she thinks, and she is very much like me in that aspect. :}

So I guess the point of that whole ramble was...Seiko **wasn'**t created to be with Lloyd. That **is not her purpose in the story. **So all of you who probably groaned and went, UGGHHH RLY? With the whole almost-a-kiss moment - that was not so I can start my OC ship. No. It is not. It happened because it went with the moment. It's funny because though that was **never my intention**, I subconsciously have been bringing her closer to him. Emiko (my sister) recently said to me the other night, "So I'm catching a little emotion flying between the little Mitsuhide and little Garmadon. " It was kind of like, wait, what? I had never realized I was doing it. Naturally, as a writer, I make myself close to the characters, and I was treating Lloyd and Seiko's relationship kind of like I would treat one between me and my guy friends. (Minus the almost-a-kiss.) Seiko doesn't get nervous. She has no boundaries. So when I wrote the previous chapter, I had the idea to give them a moment. I want Lloyd to be happy, but at the same time, the** focus of her existence isn't basing around that relationship.**

So I just wanted to clarify that with you guys, so y'all are not moanin' and groanin' about it. If you thought it was cute, then thank you, I tried. If not, you can take a nap without nightmares now. okay? ^^

* * *

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN:  
**Headlights

_Kai relented to the arrival at _the Garmadon manor instead of running to find Lloyd. The porch lights emitted a heavy glow, attracting the attention of moths while also repelling untamed creatures. Rikku's headlights flashed into the windows, and two similar, glowing white lights peered back in the reflection. If he looked at them any longer, he thought grimly, he might've gone blind.

The Garmadon's house was manufactured of two stories, painted together in white with three windows stretched across the front of the top floor, two large to the bottom. The shingles of the roof of the porch were a deep and dark color. Kai couldn't make out exactly what color it was, but he knew it was dark, and he assumed that would suffice for now. The lights in the house were on, and if he looked hard enough, he could see people moving behind the sheer curtains. _People. _People who weren't qualified as rapists, murderers, pedophiles, cannibals, or any other periodic Strange One that Kai would've met, had he still been behind bars. He could barely contain his excitement yet grim recover at meeting his friends again. His friends, who, it seemed, were tampered with. He made a note to kill Eloquim in his dreams for doing such a horrendous thing, and threw open the car door into the night.

_…_

_"Mee-sah-co! _Mee-sah-co! There is a strange car hovering in our driveway," Zane yelped, peeking through the sheer curtains. The bright headlights killed his eyeballs. Therefore, it was impossible for Zane to actually determine what the car looked like; the evils of his dainty sight made him dirge.

In the living room, Danielle braided Nya's hair, her lips pressed together in a thin line, while Nya drew a picture on a piece of colored paper. After watching her draw a lot over these long days they spent together, Zane saw that she was good at drawing people. He envied that ability. He wondered, softly, who she was drawing tonight and turned to look at the girls.

Danielle had been distancing herself from him. Zane didn't understand why; he loved her, didn't he? Wasn't love what made them be together? There was still so much of the world he didn't understand, though underneath his soul, he felt as though he'd already seen all of it. She situated herself in a cross-legged position on the ottoman of the brown recliner Mee-sah-co didn't like anyone to sit in. Nya sat on the floor in front of her, and the intricate twists and plaits that Danielle twirled into her hair looked pretty. Zane stepped off the couch to walk over. He could see her visibly try not to acknowledge him. It hurt, but something was pulling Danielle back; he wished she would tell him, so he could comfort her. He heard Mee-sah-co's voice from beyond the living room, dividing somewhere towards the kitchen, and dropped a kiss onto Danielle's soft forehead. She tensed under his lips.

"I love you," he whispered, trying to feel response.

Danielle didn't look up at him. "Go see who's here, Zane," she said, almost as though she was trying to refrain from crying. He did not want to see her cry, so he tilted her chin towards him using his fingertips. Sure enough, the glisten of forlorn, salty raindrops formed at the corners of her beautiful blue eyes.

"Do not feel sad," he said gently, stroking her chin with his thumb. He meant every word he said. "We are together now. You should be happy."

"Sure," Danielle said in a cracked tone. She looked away. Anywhere but at him. "Happy."

Zane kissed her. And he could feel her hurt underneath his mouth. He _hated _feeling that pain, the ache in his chest that made it hard to breathe and the burn in his stomach that made it hard to see.

There was something special about himself that he had learned over the past few weeks. He didn't tell anyone about it, keeping it a secret between him and him only, because he felt it was a special ability to his own liking. He concentrated himself enough to try and conduct the energy to activate it.

Under the kiss, he took her pain. With a soft _click, _their lips parted, and it left Danielle empty of pain, and Zane full of it. He smiled at her, trying not to convey what he'd done, but he sensed that she knew anyway. Her disproving look told her that she didn't like it—and he wasn't sorry for doing so.

It was just one of those sacrifices people made for those they loved.

…

"Could you _get _any dumber?" Cole snarled from the kitchen. Jay, after a stony cold glare pointed towards him, turned to help Mee-sah-co dump by the spoonful chunks of cookie dough onto a sheet. Cole wasn't interested in cooking anything, but Jay had seemed to be rather…_enthusiastic _about the idea. He poised himself at her side, where the graying old woman donned a pink apron, as she taught him how big to make the cookies. She stuck her silver spoon into the humungous bowl, where she produced circles the size of its cup, ready to be transferred. The slight flush to her cheeks underneath the sparkling lenses of her glasses rose under the oven heat.

Cole didn't find human food all that appetizing. According to Moustache Man, Cole was "special," and did not need to eat the same things everyone else did. Instead, for his sustenance, he got three glasses of dark, pure red liquid every day. Moustache said that it came from animals that Ree-coo went and killed in the backward, then squeezed the "blood" out of. Cole found the liquid salty, sweet, and thick, rich as it poured down his throat. But he always wanted more. The small little glasses that the adults gave him just didn't keep him well fed. He didn't say so, of course—he was lucky to get anything at all—but he felt himself getting crabbier by the seconds. He was _starving. _He didn't want to be snarky and rude to anyone. It was hard to fend off when you were completely dominated by your hunger.

Cole sat at the round, wooden table in the middle of the second-class Garmadon abode. The cabinets were decorated with white paint and little encouraging signs everywhere. Stainless steel appliances glistened under the small chandelier in the center of the ceiling. One large, square window hung over the double sink station. He heard Zane's shout of acknowledgement at the same moment he saw the bright lights pour through the glass. Distorting strange shadows across the far wall, it brought Mee-sah-co and Jay to turn to look outside. Cole raised a brow.

Mee-sah-co's face brightened with a smile. "They're here!" She yelled in her calm voice. From the staircase that led into the kitchen, he heard the heavy footsteps of Ed and Ed-nah rush down the stairs. Ed-nah carried that mysterious brown paper bag in her arms that she'd come back from the store with. Her brown hair tumbled down her shoulders, and her slotted glasses perched at the end of her nose. Cole felt Ed's greeting hand plop irritatingly down on his head. He bit back a strange noise threatening to bubble in his throat.

"Oh, Jay!" Ed-nah cried happily. She set the bag down on the table to clasp her hands beneath her chin. Jay turned, spoonful of cookie dough in his hand, raising that mysterious notched eyebrow in question. "Our visitor is here! Oh, he's going to be so happy to see you!"

"Visitor?" Cole cocked his head at the sound of Zane's curious voice, coming from the doorway. His socked feet padded softly across the floor until he came into Cole's view: his cheeks looked flushed, his eyes wide, and his lips pressed together in a straight line. "We never have visitors."

"You do today!" Mee-sah-co allowed Jay to take full custody of the spoon so she could untie her apron. Her face beamed happiness. "He really will be happy to see you. But be nice, will you? You used to be friends with him before you…"

"Forgot everything. Yeah, yeah, we know," Jay batted his hand and dug into the bowl. Cole had to agree with the grim tone he took on. It was commonly frustrating.

Mee-sah-co unhooked her apron and, with a flustered look around the room, passed it to Zane. "Here, hon, take this so I can open the door for them." She hooked the upper rope around his neck so all he had to do was tie the back. Before anyone could say anything, she darted off down the hallway, and was gone.

Cole and Jay exchanged a glance. Zane wore that pink apron that he looked inquisitively down at. "Erm…" He rubbed the back of his head, cheeks flaming red. "I…do not know how to respond to this."

Without another second gone, Jay and Cole burst into laughter, their guffaws taking over their lungs completely. Jay doubled over with his arm crossed over his stomach, while Cole tilted back his head to laugh into the air. Zane looked so completely awkward in that _pink apron _that the laughter couldn't be held back. Ed and Ed-nah exchanged glances, probably because adults didn't see the amusement in anything, and that was typical. Cole could sense Moustache Man had waltzed into the room at just the perfect time.

Then he heard the door open, and Mee-sah-co's lightweight voice carry into the kitchen, almost covered completely by laughter. "It's so good to see you again," said the gentle melody of a mother's vocal noises. Cole and Jay's merriment turned into inquisition when they heard a deep voice respond back.

And from the hallway, the visitor emerged.

* * *

**ANYWHO. **

**Contest** is open, and I'm already receiving entries! YAY! X3 I'm loving them more and more every time I re-read them. There **is no deadline, **and you**may**** enter more than one entry **if you can't decide between ideas. ^-^ It's **legal **to do so!

Okay. Now, my lovelies, go have an AWESOME day/night, and I'll see you right back here next time!

~Kairi:3


	16. Chapter 16

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN:  
**Love of a Brother

_Kai stepped into the kitchen. _

He was met with the eyes of Zane, Jay, and Cole, all staring at him with different expressions. Even though he knew they couldn't remember him, it still hurt to see the expected cluelessness on their faces. No matter, though; they were alive. Through Zane's welcoming smile and Jay's cocked eyebrow and Cole's narrowed eyes, he knew his friends were in there somewhere, tangled, but there. Tears came to his eyes. They'd never know how much he missed them over this month. Worrying constantly about them—it all led up to this moment.

Could he hug them? Probably not. He could try, but it would fail miserably.

"Hi," he said awkwardly, hovering as Rikku stepped in behind him. The robot shoved past him to stalk into the kitchen, then take a turn and run up an elegant case of steps, taking two at a time. From the fume in the car, Kai knew Rikku was perplexed. He was just startled to see so much emotion.

Ed and Edna held onto each other beside the round table, but when they saw him, their faces broke into smiles. "Kai!" Edna shouted, and moved around the table with her arms extended. Kai welcomed her with a hug of his own, enveloping her broad body into him—at least _some_body knew his name. "So good to see you!" She whispered in his ear, stroking his hair comfortingly. "I am so sorry about what happened to you. But you're home safe now, dear. You can sleep in a nice warm bed tonight, hmm? Oh! And I got your bleach, like Maya asked! Oh, where is she, anyways?" Edna leaned back, releasing him from her snake-like grip. She looked around. Ed walked up for a familiar clap on Kai's shoulder.

"Right here," said that deep voice, and Kai immediately scowled into the air. He watched his brothers' clueless eyes slither past him and onto the slut-dressed vampire standing in the doorway that Kai had previously occupied, before he'd hugged Edna.

"Welcome back, dear," Edna said happily, and hugged her. Kai double took at the sight of Maya's chin resting, with a smile, on Edna's wide shoulder. The thick, black eyes of the cobra stared back at him. His jaw dropped.

_"'Back'?" _Kai repeated disbelievingly. "What do you mean, _back?" _

"She came earlier," Ed said, "to drop off some of her things before leaving to get you!" He smiled at her when she moved towards him for a hug. Kai's eyes could've popped out of his head. "Good to see ya, Maya."

"Hi, Papa," Maya teased, and nestled her face into Ed's shoulder. Ed looked like he was happy, and that's what made Kai want to explode into a million pieces. _She totally brainwashed them, _he thought in bewilderment, _into liking her. No way she didn't. Oh, God, my, God…what the heck. _

"Hello." Kai turned to see Zane standing behind him, his eyes big and his smile friendly. "Who are you?"

_Ouch. _He didn't like that question, but smiled back, because Zane was _right there. _God. _Zane! _"My name is Kai. Kai Smith. You and I—we all are," Kai gestured to the other two. Jay had wandered a little closer, "brothers. The best of friends."

Cole stayed at the table, speculating darkly, but Zane's face was bright and open. Quite contrastive to the dark-skinned vampire and the pale white former nindroid. Kai's gaze flickered between the two. Cole looked so menacing, so dark and angry and vicious, like Rikku had said. Was it the lust for blood that made him so angry? Kai turned to Zane while Jay finally started up beside them. "We are?" Zane questioned, fascinated. "Really?"

"Yeah," Kai answered, and met Jay's eyes. Jay looked interested. "For, like, four years."

"Then hello, brother!" Zane yelped, and threw his arms around Kai, yanking him into his vicinity within the second it took him to move. Startled, Kai complied, and didn't know exactly what had happened when he realized that Zane was hugging him. "It is a blessing to meet you again." Kai wrapped his own arms around Zane, solid, warm, and alive underneath his embrace. _Oh, thank God, _he thought, shutting his eyes for a brief moment. Zane didn't have to remember him. He just needed to be, well, _Zane. _

Zane let him go. The smile never left his face. It was Jay who poked Kai in the arm and made a fitful noise at the lack of squish under his finger. Kai thought it was strange, but then again, here was his best friend, before him. He wasn't sure exactly how he was supposed to react to this. His initial thought was to hug them, hold them near, and make sure they were safe from harm, but then, they would think that was weird. Kai shuffled his feet over the linoleum tile. "You're not squishy," Jay commented.

"How pedophilic," said Cole darkly. He didn't move from the table, leaning back, arms crossed over his chest and silver eyes swirling with emotion. Kai met his eyes and thought of how different he looked now compared to the last he'd seen his friends. He looked…bad. Not bad, but _bad. _Badass, brooding, dark, angry—every category that would clearly intrigue a million fangirls into one room just to see him. Kai looked back at Jay again when the monger pulled at his short, spiky hair.

"Ow!" Kai gasped when Jay tugged hard.

"Why is it so…_peaky?" _Jay questioned, moving around Kai in a circle. His chin rested in his thumb and forefinger, that usual theoretical expression taped to his face when he was considering a question. "And what's with the notch in your brow up here?" His finger jammed into Kai's left eyebrow. He ducked away.

"It's just a defect," Kai stated. Jay snorted in response.

"Defect! I like it." After a giggle, Jay stuck out his hand. His eyes were bright. Kai stared at it for a moment before taking it. Formally weird much? "My name is Jay. Welcome to the house-school where Ed-nah never shuts up and Moustache Man makes Cole dance all the time."

"House…school? Moustache Man?" Kai repeated as Jay whirled around to face the oven, where a cookie sheet awaited finishing. That's when Kai actually acknowledged the pink apron on Zane's body. His heart twisted at the memory he had that they did not.

_Wait, _he thought, and dug into his pocket. _Maybe they could. _

The chip.

Kai whipped it out the second that he thought it. Sure, they didn't remember him _now; _but if he showed them the chip and what lay there, maybe they would gain some kind of insight. He pulled out the little black box just as he felt Maya creeping up on him with silent predatory instincts. "Forgetting something?" She asked flatly. Kai whirled. She didn't seem fazed by his movement, but instead, held out two tall candles, one black, and the other white. Kai stared at them.

_Lloyd, _he thought, and snatched them out of her hand anxiously without a noise of gratitude. So many things to do, so little time. Kai moved to the window above the sink, and, with a snap of his fingers, lit each candle to set each of them in the windowsill. The flame roared to life, reflected in the bitter cool glass. He caught Zane staring with his mouth wide open.

"You lit them with your fingers!" He gasped loudly, and pounced childishly on Kai's hands. He overturned the battle-scarred palms to search for a lighter, but found nothing.

Kai smiled at his friend's wonder. He opened his mouth. "I'm the Ninja of Fire," he said, ignoring Wu's previous arguments that Kai and the others weren't real ninja. "I can kind of do that since I visited the Elemental Realm."

"Elemental Realm?" Zane repeated as though Kai were telling this to a child as a bedtime story. His face was awed, but it wasn't just the young human that he'd caught the attention of; Kai noticed Cole and Jay listening curiously. Ed, Edna, and Misako had moved into the kitchen, all doing their things, but Kai knew they were listening, too. Zane pressed his thumb into the middle of Kai's palm, hard. "Tell me the story."

Kai laughed. "I would, but—"

"_But," _interjected Maya, making him bristle. She turned on her heel to lean in that weird position that resembled that of a striking cobra's. Though her back was to Kai, he could already see the haughty smirk on her stupid face as she looked to the pissed-off Cole. Thankfully, he looked at her like he had better things to do. Kai let out a held breath. "You and I have an errand."

"A what?" Cole repeated boredly. Kai, meanwhile, inched forward.

"What _errand?" _he snapped. Kiko didn't blink.

"You need to feed," she said simply. Cole's eyes flashed. "You've been starved. Three little cups a day won't save your soul when the time comes. You need to drink a heavy portion if you want to stay…" She paused, a smirk playing on her red lips. "Sane."

_And I'll bet you know that one firsthand, don't you? _Kai thought, grinding his teeth. He stepped forward to intercept her little stare-down with Cole, but he already saw the effects in his face. At the word _feed, _his skin had paled, his eyes becoming shielded by hard silver over liquid. He swallowed and ducked his head, as though to hide it, but Kai already felt himself squirm. Jay and Zane seemed mildly used to the effects. _They must see it on a regular basis, _he thought, remembering that his friends had a whole new basis to build off of. He hated to say it, but Maya was again, in the clear. Cole would have to get a belly full if he wanted to make it through the next couple of hours—and admittedly, Kai needed the old Cole back. Was it really hunger that was turning him so standoffish?

Living for a month on small doses must've killed him. _I'm sorry, _he thought of the old Cole, remembering how much he hated being a vampire—_and _Maya. He sighed and stepped out of the way. The Original vampire made a noise of approval. "Good choice, little man," she said to him, and her heels made loud noises against the tile. "If you hadn't moved, I might've resorted to letting _you _be the meal."

"Yeah, let's see how well _that _would've worked out," Kai grumbled, and watched her hold out a long, white hand for Cole to take. He stared at it.

"Why should I trust you?" snapped the earth ninja. His face snarled.

Maya raised one, penciled-in red eyebrow. "Because I'm just like you," she told him. "I'm the one who turned you _in_to a vampire. If you want to live," she snickered at the phrase, "come with me. I'll show you what a _real _meal is like."

Cole narrowed his silver eyes. "And if I don't?"

Maya shrugged, dropping her hand. "It's not like I'm forcing you," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "If anything, that's the _last _action I'm taking. It's up to you if you wanna starve to death or feast like a king. You've got a whole continent at your disposal," Maya conversed with an elegant wave of her hand around the room, gesturing to the bigger earth outside of it. "Plus, the night is _perfect _out. All the best food is usually out at this time. Instead of bunnies and chipmunks, why don't we try a prostitute or bank teller? Don't you think that sounds more appetizing?"

Cole's eyes widened in shock. "You mean…_people? _I can't eat _people!" _

"You used to do it all the time," Maya said without blinking or hesitating. Kai envied that. He would've found himself fidgeting under the steely silver eyes and the prompt of murdering to survive, but she seemed like she'd had this conversation millions of times before. "When you do it, you hardly notice. Plus, doing it for the 'first time' all over again will hopefully reawaken some of your petty little memories that you all are so intent to get back."

Cole's bushy brows clung together. "Why would I go anywhere with you? I don't even know you. I mean—I don't know your name."

Maya cocked a hip. Kai gritted his teeth when he saw Cole's eyes follow the sluttish action. "Maya," she said, and held out her hand once more. This time, he actually saw Cole hesitate. He was considering going with her. Kai hated to think that he'd be letting Cole go out there by himself, with _Kiko of all people, _but what was he to do, send an escort? He'd have to let it happen sooner or later. To be honest, he was a little scared of sticking out his own wrist and offering some—then again, what Cole got from his vein was probably dainty compared to what he'd get if he actually went and…fed properly.

"How should I know I can trust you?" Cole asked warily. Kai was proud to see that he was being cautious of Maya Kiko, even when his memory had been erased of the psycho bitch and he had no idea what she'd done before hand. That just goes to show what kind of person she was to the public. Kai's gaze darted between Cole and Maya, to Zane and Jay, who hovered by the stove in silent watching. Were they really okay with this? _Well, _he supposed, _I guess they're so used to it because it's all they see every day, anyway…I mean, they wouldn't know the difference between what's normal to everyone else, and what's normal to them, right? _

"Because she took an oath," said a voice. Kai turned his head to find Dani standing in the doorway. It was surprising to see _her _here, of all people. He felt himself smile at her appearance; though Dani had every reason to dress properly, he found her still wearing a baggy sweatshirt over worn jeans. He supposed her beauty canceled it out. Then, Kai remembered that Zane thought he was in love with her. He glanced sideways at the boy to find his face flushing and a smile to his pale lips. Well, crap. Dani pretended not to notice, and looked to Kai instead.

"Good to see you again," he commented.

"Ditto." Dani smiled faintly, but it was quickly gone. Something was obviously bothering her. Zane, maybe, and his weird honey-bird stare. Her gaze returned pointedly to Maya, where it harvested a spiteful eye-drag up and down the body from the vampire. "She swore in blood and White Ash that she would cause no harm to Cole or anyone living in this household, or else I'd kill her swiftly with the snap of my fingers, no matter where or when or what or why or _how—_she would be decapitated instantly."

"The snap of your—" _Witch, _Kai remembered. _That's right. They weren't actually kidding on the Bounty 2, were they? _He watched as Maya winced slowly, some sort of shift in the air causing her to turn her back. He knew Dani had used some kind of powerful jag to the air in a reminder. What she'd done, Kai didn't know, but he also didn't think he wanted to. He looked at Maya to find a tight, bitter smile stressed across her lips, reserved dutifully for the witch.

"Thank you for that lovely reminder, Glinda," snapped Maya.

"Anytime, Dracula." Dani narrowed her eyes.

There was obvious tension between the supernaturals, but where it came from Kai wasn't sure. Instead, he nestled his hand in a rake through his hair and sighed. "Let him go with her," Dani said without breaking eye contact. "They'll return—and soon. You can trust her, Cole. She can't hurt you. It's better for you to learn how to control yourself if you just do it right. And while _you're _busy swallowing half the town, _you"—_Dani turned to Kai, her voice directive and clearly on a mission—"will be going on a date with that bottle of bleach."

"_Oh, great." _Kai hung his head for a silent vigil. He really, really didn't want to part with his hair.

"When you're done doing _that, _I need you to come downstairs after your little shower and then I have a little more to do to you before your appearance is _completely _unnoticeable." Dani said it casually, but Kai got the feeling it was anything but casual.

"What are you going to do?" He asked, watching her out the corner of his eye.

Dani gave him an almost nonexistent smile. "Magic," she said softly.

Magic, indeed.

…

Jay was passed out on the couch, Zane was quietly interested in trying to understand what Shakespeare was referring to when he used the word "doth," Cole was unwillingly gone with that scary vampire woman, and Nya was in bed with belly pains. Ed and Edna had fallen into the hours of night and could no longer battle sleepiness; Misako had vanished into her bedroom long ago. Rikku hadn't reappeared since his initial _dis_appearance. It was just Danielle and a very, _very _blonde Kai, huddled in the kitchen, while she worked a handmade elixir through his scalp.

He looked miserable, she would say that. Kai's face was pained at losing his pointy brown locks, but Danielle knew that hairstyle stuck out like a sore thumb. His hair had soaked in so much of the bleach that, in fact, it turned almost a white, which she was okay with because it meant that the magic would work better. Despite any humanly attempts that Kai could make to change himself, it would never work. His face was too distinctive in a crowd. He was too handsome, too beautiful to go unnoticed. Silently, he took the emotional stabbing of losing that hairstyle to Danielle's soft fingers, working through his hair at a gentle pace, while he sat there with his hands folded and lids drooping. He had to be tired from all that drama today.

"Just a little longer," she promised, and scooped more of the white goo from the bowl on the table. It was made of Dragon's teeth shavings, raven's tears, naiad secretions, and plenty more unearthly combinations that humans just wouldn't know about. Kai made a noise of acknowledgement. He hadn't said much—more or less from his exhaustion—but she could sense he wanted to ask things he was afraid to say. Instigating him would be a little absurd, but she couldn't help but wonder what was making him afraid to ask. He didn't strike her as the shy type.

As if on cue, he took in his breath. Danielle worked the goo onto all parts of Kai's hair, making every last piece of it was covered before she could begin the spell. "Dani?" he asked quietly, and the question that had bugged him would soon come. Or, so to speak, _questions. _

"Hmm?" She asked, pretending she'd had no clue he was contemplating asking her something for the past twenty-five minutes.

"You know…about Lloyd, don't you?"

Somehow, she'd seen that one coming. She sighed. "I know he's missing."

"Yeah, but about…the other thing." Kai's voice was weary, as though he were afraid to reveal a secret to a friend. But of course, the only secret here was who told him. Dani knew exactly what he was talking about.

She paused before answering. Did she really want to discuss this? To openly talk about her sister's betrayal, how crazy for power Caroline really was, how she'd spent all these years mourning her son when really he was living not too far down the road from her? After a moment, she decided she was overstressing. Kai had only asked if she knew, not about the details. "Yes," she answered after a while. "I do."

"I'm so sorry," Kai breathed. He sounded sincere.

"About what? It's not your fault." Dani wiped her hands on a dish towel after running them beneath water to get rid of the extra goo. Kai pulled his hand down his face, not an act of impatience, but of stress. The rigid line of his shoulders made her wince.

"Yeah, but with Caroline…" _Now _they were getting into the part Danielle wanted to avoid. She busied herself digging through her messenger bag for the Grimoire, her mother's Spellbook of every spell known to witches. The leather-bound, worn cover came slowly from the pack. "She's hurt all of us."

"Caroline is not Carolyne," Danielle said suddenly, veering off topic. "Caroline is Caroline, a robot made of evil and hate. Carolyne was not like that. So there isn't anything to be sorry over, other than the fact that an evil villain stole my son and sold him. It wasn't my sister who did it, so we can't blame her for what she was never around to see."

"Caroline is your sister?" Kai asked, surprised. Dani looked at his shocked face sharply.

"Caroline is not my sister. My sister was Carolyne."

"Oh. Right. Sorry." Kai rubbed his neck uncomfortably. As Danielle gently paged through the Grimoire for the right spell, she could feel more of the conversation coming on. Sure enough, when she was getting deeper into the appearance spells, Kai began his questions again. "So what was Lloyd's name, then? Before Caroline took him."

Danielle stared into the pages, with them memories flooding into her heart. She could practically hear them all as if they were real-time beside her. "Kyon von Teufel. Kyon was my favorite name, growing up." _K-y-own, _pronounced just as, Kyon was the name she had _always _wanted to name her child. "I wanted to have a daughter, too, and name her Anastasia."

"I'm sorry," Kai whispered, but Danielle looked at him sharply again.

"You have nothing to be sorry for. It wasn't your life, was it?"

"N-no," Kai said, startled by her harshness. "It's just…losing everything…"

Dani regarded him over her nose. "I suppose you know what that's like, don't you, boy?"

Kai made a scoffing noise and looked away. "Yeah," he murmured softly. "Kinda."

Dani felt a pang for being so harsh. She felt the constrictions over her heart begin to fade. "You and Lloyd are close, aren't you?"

"He's my best friend," Kai said without hesitating, but also without making eye contact. Danielle cocked her head to the side. "I love him, sometimes more than I think I love myself."

"Do you?" Dani asked, searching still for the proper spell. It was lost in the thousands of wrinkled, torn, yellowed papers of the Grimoire. "And this…love, it's brotherly?"

"Of course," Kai answered immediately. His eyes flashed with warning. "Why would it be otherwise?"

"Just checking," she responded softly. "Because I can feel how much you love, yet I don't know who it is you give that love to."

This time, Kai was the one unsure of what she was referring to. His notched eyebrow rose. "What are you talking about?" He asked, but she caught the curiosity in his sensual voice.

Danielle bit her lip, squinting at him to try and catch the right words. "There is a love, in your heart, that is separate from the love you feel for your friends and family. It's distant, on its own. It's dying to be fed, be nourished, but you keep…pushing it away. You don't want it, yet your body does. You don't know what you want, but it knows very well."

Kai's cheeks flamed. He looked at the floor. Danielle knew she'd caught him in words he would never speak himself. "You love someone who doesn't know you love them," Dani said softly, but then backtracked. "Or is it that you love someone, but you don't even know who?"

_Aha. _Danielle's eyes came upon the proper spell. Bringing it around the table so she could read it while performing magics to Kai. He kept his head down, unanswering, and she prepared herself to not experience one. Sprinkling pieces of faerie's wing over her hands, Danielle looked to the Grimoire for guidance. Without warning him, she dropped the dust into his hair and began to breathe. "_Spiritus concede mihi hanc gratiam," _she whispered, and Kai's shoulders visibly tensed. The Latin rolled off Danielle's tongue like her native language. "_Obtulerat enim vobis hendrerit. Mihi tribuat facultatem ad reformabit ipse in aliam in pace, ut non belli." _

With each word, Danielle began slowly kneading Kai's hair outwards, as if she were smoothing conditioner through his locks. Instead, with every tug down, his hair began to grow _longer. _His hair grew with the power of magic, slowly but surely gaining length over the course of time. She continued as she kneaded his hair between her hands, like she was humming to herself. "_Illum sanguis et osse, et ponam illum media nocte cremor, fáciat eum in fortitudine et impavide." _Then, in her own little touch of selfless humor, she added, "_Eius sexus appellationis etiam magis fulgentiorem hodie." _

And as she asked, the spirits granting the magic gave. Kai's hair, which previously had been chocolate, then stale white, began to darken. The length she pulled it to reached the end of his neck, and from its previous thickness it began to thin. Kai's skin, normally a light tan, started to turn creamy and pale. He gasped when he noticed his skin was changing. "Dani?" He asked, alarmed, but Dani only stepped away, shaking off the excess goo on her hands. He jumped to his feet and watched his bare arms—he'd changed into a T-shirt—begin to fade. "What did you do?"

"You couldn't stay the same way you were," Dani said to him, and Kai whirled. His blonde hair faded continuously until, falling at his neck, it was black. Instead of the peaky points before, his hair lay flat against his head, long, with that damp/wet look that was good-looking. His skin was pale white. His nose, which before was fairly proportioned to his face, began to slim, as did his cheekbones, showing off his cheeks more prominently—but with an attractive edge. The notch in Kai's eyebrow completely disappeared. His fingers grew longer, his eyelashes darkening, and his chocolate brown eyes, though Maya had spent money on contacts, wheeled a 360 into a deep golden shade. He stared at her in shock. "What did you do?!" he cried quietly, trying not to wake anyone.

"Wait," Danielle said, and envisaged before turning to grab the scissors out of the drawer behind her. "Sit," she commanded, and before he could protest, her magic forced him to sit on the chair without moving. Kai's eyes widened.

"What are you—no, don't you _dare—"_

_Snip. _

His hair began to layer under Dani's expertise in haircutting. She cut the layers in to provide more of a swishing look to it, but she thought he looked nice with it. Kai's mouth never closed, and he hadn't even _seen _himself yet. She stepped back to admire her work. "There," she said, tossing aside the scissors. Kai stared at her with wide eyeballs. "Well? You should definitely go lo—"

_Bang. Thud. Creak. _

Danielle whirled at the sound of a door being mauled. At the same time, Kai shot to his feet, prepared in ninjuitzu if he needed to use any of that. But Dani could sense the lack of danger immediately after the noise came. She froze. The sound of the squeaking front door, accompanied by footsteps, led exactly to what her belief conveyed. She looked to Kai with a final pained expression before his eyes widened, too, and they both shared the similar realization too late.

A call rang out in the silence of the house.

"Hello? _Helloooooo_?"

Danielle squeezed her eyes shut. Was she ready for this? Was she really, truly, honestly ready for this? She felt Kai's hand on her shoulder, and peeked to find his sympathetic gaze met with hers. Kai looked down at her, completely changed into someone else with the use of her magic, but she still knew it was him. His expression bore as if to say, _I'm sorry, but this has to be done. _Almost imperceptibly, Danielle nodded.

Without ever taking his eyes off hers, Kai responded confidently into the silence.

"We're in here, Lloyd. Come find us."

* * *

**o.O**

**_No new announcements. _**

**Please **review, and go have an **AWESOME **day/night! ^-^

~Kairi :3


	17. Chapter 17

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:  
**Show Me Your Fangs  
_Yang_

_I marched up the porch steps, my feet slamming _loudly into the white painted wood. I could see lights on inside of the house, a perfect reminder that someone was home, but not the reason I was completely drawn back to my old house in the same neighborhood I'd left months ago. In the window, praying two flickers of gold and orange, a couple of candles the size of my palm hovered like guardian angels, drawing my attention more than near. With Seiko shortly behind me, I mounted the welcome mat, feeling more or less the opposite of the attractive shoe-cleaner. The white crested door, labeled in a plaque, practically shunned me. The last name plastered across it seemed like a silver lie right now. I had lived all my life with that same title, but the whole time, I was actually living a lie. A cold, stony lie, inflicted entirely by Caroline. I wasn't actually Lloyd Garmadon at all.

Who was I, then?

I felt Seiko's weary personality glowing at my back, burning brighter than an angel's wings; her aura of darkness and muddled shadows contemporarily warmed my shoulder blades. I tried not to think about the almost-kiss we had practically shared, me landing her a big fat one across her mouth if she hadn't pulled me back into the present. I'd been combing it over the whole trek here, surprising myself even to find a desire like that burning in my chest. With that kind of inappropriate behavior, I had become more unlike myself than I had before I'd almost-kissed Seiko. What was I even thinking? When I thought about it, I barely even knew her. The details I had consisted of her sarcastic character, her desire to name people with extremely odd nicknames, her inability to ice skate, her previous inhabitance at a local insane asylum, and her official title of "Void." I would eventually have to dig deeper into that last one to even know what it meant, but the rest was all surface clues. I knew nothing about her. So what had compelled me to want to plant one across her naturally red lips?

Was it that I was just flowing mainstream into the moment, taking the chance like most guys would? Was it that I had looked at her mouth a couple of times and found it to look plusher than a pillow? Was it that she was kind of cute in an insane way? Was it that I thought she was partially interesting in a psychotic, abnormal way?

Or maybe, _I _was the psycho here. I didn't know anything anymore; my emotions were so out-of-tune that I didn't think I'd recover all of them completely. All I really knew was that she walked a few paces further behind me than she normally would have, and every inch she took backwards made my body colder.

Without knocking like your typical classy douche, I threw open the door, surprised to find that it wasn't locked. Normally, Misako left it closed and completely latched through all four slits, keyholes mixed with manual sliding devices. The entering hallway was clean as ever, practically gleaming through its sparkle, except perhaps the multiple pairs of shoes sitting neatly in the doorway. I didn't pay my respects through disowning my own pairs of boots, and after a hesitation, neither did Seiko. The hall was dim, but at the very end of the narrow passage, the decision between the living room doorway on the right and the kitchen entry on the left did not glow completely. The staircase at the center of it all led upwards into the dark upstairs that I couldn't see into. A small rectangle of light poured into the hallway from the kitchen, bleeding into the living room. I looked towards Seiko for the first actual time since our almost-kiss and held out my hand to stop her from scurrying forward any more.

She raised a thin, black eyebrow at me. _"What?" _she mouthed, but I put my finger to my lips. Who was to say that there wasn't some strange creature lurking in the darkness, scuffling amongst the dust bunnies like a real one?

I took a step forward—and an inward breath. "Hello?" I called loudly into the empty air. "Helllooooo?"

My voice carried loudly, bouncing off the plaster and ceramic dolphins. There was nothing but the shady sound of me talking to no one, and Seiko's small heart beating rapidly behind me. The last time I was in this house, I was puking blood out my guts by the gallon. It was immensely strange to think at how far I'd come since then.

Seiko entered the house behind me. I sensed her tiny, Asian-produced body the nanosecond it crossed the threshold barrier. It felt like a stab into my skin, a slice by a thin blade. She seemed oblivious, but I jerked at the way it took to my body. How…weird, actually. Weird that I just got stabbed by air.

"We're in here, Lloyd. Come find us."

Seiko jumped at the sound of the voice calling back to me, but the deep, _R-_accentuating voice struck a familiar note in my chords. I'd know that voice anywhere. Then again, at the way my heart jumped into my throat and my hopes soared, and I felt happier than no guy alive, I knew that caution would always be my best friend, and took a hesitant step forward. I felt Seiko move after I'd took a few more confident strides.

My heart pounded in my chest. I _heard _him. I hadn't seen him since he was in the Elemental Realm, tears formed into his eyes as he whispered a goodbye forever to me. His death was all I'd fallen into, a black pit daring to swallow me for what sin I committed that made the devil want to stab my eyes out of my sockets. Never in a million years had I completely envisioned myself hearing him _for real. _Was this a dream? Somehow, it had to be. Kai. By the sounds of it, he was here, somewhere, alive, breathing, and well. I moved further into the hallway before emerging into the doorway of the kitchen.

But I didn't see him.

I saw her, first.

Not the greatest means of confrontation to the woman you knew by the whisper in your head and the sudden cling of your lings together, making it hard to breathe. She turned towards me, a look in her eyes that made me understand she knew I had been coming. Back at me stared the same crystal blue irises that looked towards me in the mirror, but instead plastered to a feminine, sculpted face. It looked like a classic van Gogh_, _the way her features were portrayed. Golden hair spilled down her shoulders, the exact same shade as mine; she was tall, lithe, and wrapped in comfort clothes rather than fashionable ones. Her lips, pale pink and full, pulled at the corners in a smile that was _almost _existent, but I didn't think even if it _were _born that I'd accept it.

Danielle looked at me coolly. The Eye whispered something in a tongue I understood, as Tonguespeaker: _valru ün de poretuunu. _"Blood only connects us." I felt my heart crash into a deep sink. There she was, in all her glory, looking me in the eye. It was hard to wrap my head completely around the statement that my birth mother was right there in front of me. I couldn't think of how to make a better entrance than the one that flew out of my mouth quicker than I thought it: "Hi, _Mom." _

Danielle didn't blink. "Hello," she said, almost monotonically.

And that's when I noticed her little friend. I'd hoped to see Kai, but who stood there wasn't him. My heart sank. Instead, a tall, black-haired boy stood at her side, his hair falling over his eyes in a thin rail that looked wet and shiny. His pale mouth almost blended into his skin. He towered not too tall over Danielle, but the way he stood looked familiar. I narrowed my eyes at both of them, but I saw the boy's eyes brighten with joy and tears, an explosion of movement becoming him. "LLOYD!" He cried, and he sounded a lot like Kai, I found to my disquiet. He ran around the side of the table and, in a flash, had enveloped me in his strange arms before I could say or do anything likewise. He crushed me against him, like we were long lost friends. "Oh, Lloyd…I thought I had lost you forever…"

"What the hell?" I shoved him off, using all my might. He stumbled back until he practically crashed into the table. Using a chair to steady himself, the boy's expression took on incomprehension and hurt. I held out my hands. They began to whir and glow with my power, forcing the boy's eyes to now widen with fear. "Who are you?" I demanded angrily. Danielle moved calmly from her position, but I gave her a glare, too. She had left me to nothing. Why did she deserve my acceptance?

"Calm down," she said in a soothing voice, flowing from her lips like silk. I barely glanced at her, instead aiming my hands towards the strange boy. He blinked unsurely.

"L-Lloyd," he stammered, "don't _do _anything, you idiot!" He straightened, recollecting himself before running a hand through his hair with a short laugh. "I guess it worked, Dani. If _he _doesn't recognize me, then I don't think the cops will, either."

I narrowed my eyes. Suspicion rose in my throat. Danielle looked with a tight smile to the boy, who took in a deep breath. They both looked strained and, above all, stressed out as hell. I figured that Sensei, when telling me I should _follow the incense, _was a whack-job, and ultimately had landed me in a completely obscene house. Sure, it was convenient that my mother was here—who, by the way, looked _my _age, which I didn't know whether to find disturbing or not—I mean, really, shouldn't she have been older? Why did she look like a kid? Why not like a mom? I'd known she was the Danielle I belonged to because of that weird sense you get when you know your mom's standing right beside you, peeking over your shoulder, only deeper than that. A connection. A connection, might I add, out of anger. I scowled my lip at her, watching her barely even react to it. Emotionless.

"What are you talking about?" I snapped. Embers, electricity, earth, and ice burned my hands. The boy looked at them, unfazed. "Well? Talk! What the hell's going on here? Who are you?"

"Watch your mouth," warned the boy with Kai's voice, and without waiting for my birthday to come rolling around, I hurled a wad of electricity at him. He dodged as it caught the back of the wooden chair, knocking off a complete chunk of it. The boy stared in shock. "Lloyd! No! Don't! It's me, Kai!"

"Yeah, right, and I'm Clutch Powers," I scoffed, and began to Create between my hands. I did it as though I was just cracking my knuckles, a motion as easy as that. "Kai has pointy hair, dick."

"It really is Kai," Danielle input. I severed the desire to tell her to shut up.

"No! Really! Ask me anything!" the boy held up his hands, showing surrender. I couldn't believe he was trying to pass for Kai. Did he really think I was an idiot? More pissed now than I had been before, I moved to step forward, but stopped when he began to speak again. How _dare _he try and fake me out. "I had to change what I look like because I'm being tracked by the police! I'm a fugitive!"

"Kai would never get arrested," I growled. The boy shook his head quickly.

"I was framed!" He gasped loudly. Desperately, he cried out, "Lloyd, they framed me for killing Brad Tudabone. I had to get broken out because our brothers need me! They had their memory erased by Eloquim! Lloyd, don't throw that at me! Please! Look!" The boy pushed back the hair from his face, revealing a manor completely different than what Kai really looked like. I narrowed my eyes. _Brad? _I thought, remembering the face of that obnoxious kid who liked to stick fire ants in my bed. _Brad was killed? _

"Do you remember that one day," the boy continued quickly, trying to spare his life, "on the _Bounty_, after you defeated the Overlord, and you and I decided that we wanted to pull a prank on Zane, so we hid his apron on the mast? Do you?"

"Any idiot could know that," I growled, and stepped forward with my hands on fire. I sensed Seiko nudge herself closer into the effects of the scene, soaking it in tad by tad in quiet.

"Wait! WAIT!" he held out his hands, shrinking against the sink. "Do you remember the day with the Grundle, the day you were changed into a teen? Remember that night, when we came home, and Cole kept talking about how you'd soon get 'the Talk' but you didn't know what that was?"

I rolled my eyes. But the boy kept going. "I saved your life from destruction in the volcano! You would've died without me! I was going to get the Fangblade, but—What about when Zane, Jay, Cole, and I kept talking about your dad's Mega Weapon? Remember that? You didn't know what it was because at that time, it didn't exist? I worked the hardest for you! I didn't stop at _anything _to make sure you became the best you! Lloyd, you _have _to believe me!"

I heard Danielle speak, but I dismissed her existence. The fire of my hands felt satisfying, but not enough until it burned, crackling, through this guy's flesh. I leaned back my arm like a pitcher ready to strike out the next batter. He wasn't going to be the perfect imposter to ruin Kai's reputation. Then again, how did he know those things? There was a conspiracy going on here, one I couldn't stand.

"The dream!" He shouted suddenly, and I narrowed my eyes. The boy waved his arms frantically to catch attention. "My dream! The one about you and the guys, the one I kept having, with that strange girl and the powers—the one where I knew Cole was a vampire, when Zane kept freaking out, where Cole and Jay kept fighting, but you were so far away from me!" I froze. That dream was personal. He knew he'd caught my attention and rambled further. "I kept trying to run to you, but you kept getting further away, and you tried to attack me, but when that girl touched you, you suddenly stopped freaking out and we were in this _big _room, with no windows—the power switch! There was a giant switch, remember? A-and you flipped it, but something happened and the whole place started shaking, everything beginning to crumble—"

How could he _know _that? That was Kai's dream, not this stranger's. How did he _know _that? I froze, looking at him with narrowed eyes, the anger dying down in me. He knew it through some sort of mind-overtake; he had to be a fake. No way he—

_He is real, _whispered the Eye. _He only speaks the truth. _

_What? _I thought, but I felt something inside of me rise. It was true. _He _was Kai. This weird guy was _Kai._ I stared at him, trying to pry the Kai out of his appearance, but all I could feel through the golden eyes and black hair was his voice. So familiarly like Kai's that it hurt to hear. "You…" I whispered, and my heart soared. It was Kai. _Kai! _My best friend, my confidence, my help, my brother. He was alive, and, admittedly, freaky looking, but he had a real body, eyes, face, _heartbeat._ "…Kai?" I felt _hope._ A smile spread across his lips, relief pooling his face. He looked tranquil.

"Lloyd," he breathed, and I saw tears.

I felt her hand on my back, then. It made my whole body jerk diffident like a marionette, my back stand up straighter and my heart begin to pound. The anxiety in my heart immediately ceased to be. I felt myself relaxing into the curve of her palm, the wrap of her fingers around mine; Seiko's tiny body was suddenly peeking, like a child, around my arm like it did when we first encountered Noel. Kai's eyes, wide and blissed, slipped from mine to hers, and it was like something inside of _him _slapped and shook. Like I'd walked over there and actually smacked him. Except it seemed like the one doing the proverbial smacking was Seiko.

She never really intended to scare us, but somehow, she always freakishly did. With her body practically pressed into mine, her Jay-blue eyes wide, her Kai-red lips parted, her Zane-white face only half visible around my arm, and her Cole-black bangs hanging over her eye, Seiko stared as though the air had been punched out of her gut. Kai, too, stared in shock. He looked like he was witnessing seeing a unicorn in person, although I figured that was less than the case. Something passed in the air, and the Eye purred with confusion and understanding all at once. I, however, witnessed the latter. Kai took a deep breath in which he held in his chest longer than normal. _What's going on? _I thought, but Kai killed any answer the Eye would've given. _"You…" _he whispered.

Seiko made a small, squeaky, childish noise and ducked behind me. Call me stupid, but I felt…different, shielding her from Kai, who had the life sucked out of him immediately after she disappeared from his sight. I felt like I was doing my job. Seiko pressed her face into the tender spot between my shoulder blades, curling her hands against her chest. All awkwardness with us must've dissipated, although I had a sense she'd had none in the first place. Kai blinked rapidly into the air as I stared.

"You're from my dream," he managed, choked. I frowned. "You're that—that girl."

Seiko made a shudder behind me, and I knew that something was wrong. What had made her duck from the sight of him so quickly?

"You're the one that calms Lloyd, the one in the black dress," Kai continued. He looked at my chest like he could see through my organs and into Seiko. "You—you—you…" He couldn't form the words he wanted to make, but I felt Seiko's tiny hand slip into mine again. _She is frightened, _said the Eye, _and seeks your comfort. _

_No duh._

_Do not snap, _it warned. _Do not upset her. Do you not remember Noel's words? Though insane, the boy did not lie. The balance cannot be upset. Seiko's Void is very dangerous, and she has yet to harness it, Lloyd. Any pure emotion can drive her to release it, and it will suck you into _nothing. _Not just you, but everyone, everything, and elsewise around you. Her power knows no limits. If she upsets even the slightest balance because of her emotion, then there will be devastating consequences. She is the one who turns the tables now. What side she belongs to matters._

_Why? _I asked, but the Eye disappeared into silence. Under that warning—the Eye had never been wrong—I complied with allowing her to hold onto my hand, enjoying the flow of easiness I got from the touch. I looked to Kai, who was recovering from his cloudy, mind-daze. I wanted to run to him, hug him, but there were bigger matters that came before enjoying his life again. Seiko whimpered into my back. She sensed it before I did.

The darkness.

It crept through the air like tendrils, winding around us like cool air preparing to choke us to nothing, It chilled me to the bone, yet existed prematurely on hate and spite. Insanity, loss of gain, and prematurely more so I could sense the insecurity that came when the sound of the front door sounded again, and this time, it was not a hello that greeted all. It was a growl.

"What are _you _doing here?" spat an angry, hateful, spiteful voice. I whirled, expecting not much of the sound, but found a blood-red haired girl standing before us, her bangs pointed in an arrow, and her eyes full of malice. She stared in a curled, pink lip, black eyes sharp. She stood in the kitchen doorway, and I sensed Danielle, eerily silent, begin to bristle.

Seiko took one look at the girl and screamed.

She scrambled for me, grabbing onto me and, before my knowledge came, yanking herself towards me like a koala attaching itself to a tree. It happened so fast that I wasn't even sure what happened.

"Shut up, Maya," snapped Kai from behind me. Maya barely heard him. Her eyes were pointed at Seiko, who clutched onto me tightly, wrapping the ends of my shirt at the small of my back around her fingers. She buried her face into my chest and squeezed shut her eyes, but it wouldn't eliminate the nightmare standing before her. Maya's lip curled.

"I thought I killed you _ages _ago," snarled Maya, and she took a step, mounted on heels, forward. The linoleum clittered in response. "You dumb little _bitch_! Can't you just stay _dead? _Or in that asylum like you're supposed to be?"

"_HEY," _I snapped defensively, and moved so Seiko was partially out of Maya's reach. But the little Asian girl had better plans. With one final tug on my shirt, Seiko suddenly disappeared from my arms. Her speed, gained from whatever transformation she'd undertook in the Underworld, carried her across the room, opposite Maya, in less than a second. She reappeared beside the stove, eyes wide. I knew that look. She was in _fight or flight _mode. Whoever this 'Maya' was, it was definitely someone who Seiko knew, and I wasn't feeling too well about it. From what I had experienced when Seiko was scared, it was that she fought back for her own survival, not yours. Case in point the dining incident in Noel's castle.

I saw it coming a little too late.

In an instant, Seiko yanked open the silverware drawer, but instead dodging the dull butter knives for the sharper ones with black handles. I moved to intercept her, trying to at least calm her down—when her eyes were so furious, so afraid, I knew she was in for a murderous rage—but Seiko didn't need to physically stab it into Maya. The red-haired girl leaned back like a striking cobra just as my hand closed around Seiko's arm. Unfortunately, it wasn't the one holding the weapon, and the little girl hurled it with all her might through the air.

Knives moved faster than I remembered. It flew through the air, wasting no time to aim straight for Maya, who was only just processing it. I reached out my hand, like that would help save her life. The knife went for Maya's heart.

_Clang. Slice._

The impact didn't land into her heart, though. Quicker than I would've imagined, and faster than guaranteed services in shipment, a black mass had appeared out of nowhere, taking a short enough amount of time to jump in front of Maya, a protective shield, to raise his hand and catch the knife before it hit anyone. I blinked multiple times to try and process the angry, fuming, nostril-flaring, silver-eyed vampire standing in front of Maya, who'd come from absolutely nowhere but suddenly inhabited the space.

_"Leave her alone!" _Cole hissed, his fangs bore. The veins visible underneath his eyes and along his cheekbones deepened red with his anger. Seiko jumped about four feet in fear. He looked feral. Damn, he looked _pissed _beyond all believe. He lived up to his vampire status with even the shake in _me, _who feared nothing.

"Don't you _ever _hurt her, or I swear to _God," _Cole snarled through his fangs, surprisingly efficient, "_I _will be the one to rip your heart right out of your goddamn _chest." _

And with one fluid, quick movement, Cole repositioned the knife in his hand and hurled it, spiraling, straight at Seiko's _own_ heart.

* * *

**GAH **I wish I could say more but am in a hurry! **Please go **have an awesome day/night, and I'll see you right back here next time! ~Kairi


	18. Chapter 18

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:  
**Evil Happens

He moved through the crowd, lithe as a cat weaving its way through the legs of its master. The horde of gatherers now pulsed with excitement, which he necessarily ignored out of spite. The point to doing all this was a little…strange, especially to collect yourself within a mass of others who, supernaturally, were not inclined for much. None of them stopped to give him much thought. Which he gladly expected of them; all he looked to be was a boy in dark jeans and a blue sweatshirt, holding a reusable, eco-friendly shopping bag in his hands. Nothing of the likes, right? He could be anyone, a grad student from straight A's, or a teacher-in-training with really good genes. Perhaps he was a foreigner, looking to have a good time in the heart of Ignacia, where partygoers gathered for the annual Moon Festival. The gathering took place all week, leading up to this Friday, which was going to be the full moon—_and, _may he add, the main event. Midnight left the almost-moon watching them from millions of miles away atop the sky, and lanterns lit up the night with an eerie glow. Booths selling merchandise and food were swarmed with people, oblivious to everything that was _really _happening around them. Laughter, smiles, and coffee were consistent traits among the peoples.

He spotted his friends, lazily throwing darts at white, air-filled balloons in a booth. The two of them pushed each other around with their own maniacal laughter, but hardly anyone noticed. He gave a satisfied smile and loped towards them in easy grace.

"Hey," he said casually. They turned their eyes on him, and he showed his mouth in a half-smirk. The sunglasses fitted over their eyes reflected nothing, although even in this darkness, they sometimes caught people staring confusedly at them. No matter. He waved the bag in the air in front of them. "I gooottt it."

"Took you long enough," said his dark haired friend. He cracked his knuckles and abandoned the dart in one final blow, catching a massive white balloon in a loud _pop. _The vender and owner behind the counter jumped. "Keep the stuffed piece of crap," his friend added, before they turned away towards the throng.

"It's not easy to get your hands on seven gallons of Traveler's Tea, dude. The last woman I got it from almost didn't give it to me." He passed along the green bag to his dark haired friend. The boy frowned into the contents.

"What's this?" He asked, and yanked out the masquerade mask. It fit like a butterfly across a woman's nose, the wings curling around her face, while slits in the centers revealed her eyes. It was something he'd picked up on his way here out of wonder. Plus, he'd had a couple of shings to spare, and he thought the Mistress would like it.

"That's for the ball," he answered. "Did you really think I wouldn't get Her Majesty something, Fang?" He snatched the bag back and shoved the mask back inside. Fang looked at him sideways through the corner of his sunglasses, giving a nose-wrinkle.

"You've got it out for her, Jace," Fang commented, but Jace just rolled his eyes. Listening to this was pathetic. He'd heard it a million times, yet he wasn't about to let through any mischeviety of the scandal that _really _was happening with the Mistress. Better for him to know, and them never to find out. Fang turned, methodically, to Ash, who was silent between them. His pale skin gave way nothing. "Don't you think?"

"It seems," answered Ash vaguely. Jace rolled his eyes again, wishing they could see it. Maybe they could, he thought, and rubbed his chin.

"Remind me, again, why we need seven gallons?" asked Fang. They pushed the crowd aside without gentle pats and instead practically knocked over tons. Jace didn't care what-for they'd suffer through, but he refixed his glasses on his nose, giving a fox smile to a dark haired girl looking at him. She blushed and looked away. The girls were _always _looking at them with hearts pouring out their eyeballs. Some reason attracted them to bad boys, which Jace was not going to argue about, because he liked, partially, to have them drop at his knees.

Ash was the one to answer. His easy voice carried over the hum of other noises. "For the Seven," he responded. "One gallon for the Seven. They all have to suffer and pay, don't they? Isn't that what the Mistress said?"

"Something to that effect," Jace answered, scanning the crowd and remembering the _treat_ that she'd bequeathed him afterwards. It made his cheeks warm just thinking about it. He found no trace of the face he was looking for, and gave a loud, heavy sigh, trying to clench his fists around the handles of the bag. "Oh, where _is _he?" He groaned. "I'm _not _letting him be late again."

"We can't _stop _him from being late, can we?" Fang sighed. "No matter how many physical abuses we put on him, he's always doing it."

"He is always in such a rush," Ash commented deeply. They paused beside a gambling tent and looked harder. "Why is it that he is always late when we properly need his assistance?"

Jace looked at him out the corner of his eye. "Could you maybe _drop _the huge vocabulary? You'll just make yourself sound even more stupid."

"How is a large vocabulary categorized as stupidity? I would assume that—"

"Just shut up."

Ash quieted with pursed lips. Then, they heard the loud screech of tires against gravel, and turned to feel the roar of a loud engine rumbling through their feet. An earthquake could've been born from the sound. There were little screams, and the crowd parted as the thick motorcycle peeled through the commons, almost overthrowing tons of children into a pile of guts and bones. Jace rolled his eyes. Of course, he had to make an entrance, he thought as the motorcycle swerved and stopped to hover in front of him. The sleek black metal gleamed under the lanterns, and the driver turned his black helmet towards them.

"Where have you been?" Fang demanded, stepping forward. He crossed his arms over his chest. "We've waited half an hour."

"Oops," said the driver, but he didn't sound sorry. His fingers flicked over the handlebars impatiently. "Did you get the stuff?"

_"Yeah _I got the stuff," Jace answered, waving the bag in gesture. "But seriously, Kayus," he said, unamused, "where have you been?"

"Getting Kaos," he answered, and then Jace noticed the form stepping off the back of the motorcycle. He'd been so dark, that Jace hadn't been able to see him in the black of night. He watched Kaos remove his helmet and set it on the back of Kayus' seat, his all-black uniform bending into the darkness. In contrast, he saw the heavenly glow radiate from the boy's features. He was not, in fact, human.

Kayus didn't remove his own helmet. Instead, he kept it on, as well as staying on the bike. Jace smiled at Kaos as the 'golden boy' stepped forward. He looked serious, unhappy, and brooding, his orange eyes bearing into Jace's worse than the lick of fire to skin. "Howdy, Kaos," Jace started, but the boy held up his hand.

"I will hear none of it," he leered. "We don't have time to dilly-dally. Let's get this show on the road, shall we?"

Jace's jaw clamped shut. He held out the bag, and Kaos took it in his hands, folding his fingers around the material and reaching within to clasp two water bottles from the bag. The clear tea showed no sign of its magic. Just then, they heard the loud wheel of sirens in the distance. Kayus tilted his head.

"Damnit." He sighed. Jace narrowed his eyes.

"What'd ya do this time?" Fang inquired. Kayus cracked his knuckles as Kaos pretended not to notice anything, digging out the five large bottles needed to complete the gallon. One for each of them.

"Well, I'm driving a _motorcycle _in the middle of a _festival. _Hmm, I wonder?" Kayus said sarcastically. "You're an idiot. They're coming for me. And I'll be sure that they remember my face this time."

Ash rubbed his forehead. Kaos passed Jace a bottle, which he took, peering at the unlabeled plastic peculiarly. "They remembered you last time," Ash said.

"No, they remembered my prints," Kayus waggled his gloved fingers. "Who cares. I'm going to make a scene."

"Isn't that what we're here for?" Fang said as he took a bottle. Two smokers standing beside the gambling tent watched them, blowing smoke rings as they assessed the situation. Kayus stuck a middle finger for both of them, but neither seemed impressed; Kayus wasn't one for impressing. He was one for making an _impression. _He dismounted the motorcycle and took his own from Kaos.

"Thanks, little man," he said from behind the mask.

Kaos looked ticked. He threatened, "Call me that again. I dare you." Kayus laughed again, and unscrewed the cap to his bottle just as the police officers, only two, began to swarm.

"HEY!" They shouted. Kayus sighed. It was more a sound of irritation than anything. "You can't have motorized vehicles in here!"

"Does it look like I care?" Kayus challenged. Jace smirked from behind his sunglasses. Fang chuckled. Typical Kayus…

"Look, buddy, either you take it out or we—"

"Or you'll what?" Kayus interrupted. "Stick me in cuffs and haul me back to the station? Go eat a donut, fatty, I'm busy." With that, he dismissed them with a wave of his hand, turning back to the bottle. The boys surpressed laughter as the police officer turned red, and grabbed Kayus' arm roughly.

"You need to be taught a lesson, kid. Your manners are—"

"_I _need to be taught a lesson?" Kayus snapped. He handed Kaos his bottle. Jace knew that then, there would be trouble. Whirling out of the officer's grip, he faced him behind the helmet, but no one needed his face to see the darkness that had overcome his eyes. "I think _you_ do. Didn't your Mama ever tell you not to touch a Bizarro when you saw one?"

"A Bizarro? What, is that your gang name?" The police officer's hand tightened on his gun.

"You could say that," Kayus said lowly. Then he swung.

His fist collided with the officer's nose, sending a shower of blood into the sky. The second officer moved towards him, but Kayus was ready, and so were the other Bizarro. They stepped forward. "I don't feel like punching today," Jace said loudly, and twisted his hips. "Wanna go, boys?" The simultaneous agreement made him smile; he loved this part. _"Ninjaaaaaagoooooooooo!" _They shouted, and whirled into tornadoes, picking up debris and chucking it at the officers. They gave shouts of fear at the same moment as things knocked them to their bottoms. The crowd screamed and moved backwards to flee.

Kayus paused his Spinjitzu, halting the others. He dropped to one knee beside the officers. "Hey, don't be so down," he said to them, as they tried to scuttle backwards with wide eyes. "That's not the _worst _part we have in stock for you." He put his gloved hands on either side of his helmet, and tugged.

…"….You! You escaped! Walkie! G-get the walkie, it's the murder—"

"Murderer," Kayus repeated with a grin, and smoothed his spiky brown hair. "That's right. Me. _Kai Smith. _But you won't ever have to hear that name again—well, maybe, once we send you You Know Where." Kayus pointed downwards. The officers followed his red eyed gaze to the ground. They began to sweat. Jace stalked over and yanked one up by the collar.

"Hey, fatty," he taunted, and removed his sunglasses. He saw his bright red eyes reflect in his frightened brown irises. Screams behind him came from those running from Kayus, who they assumed was Kai Smith, the accused murderer. Of course, though, it never _was _Kai. But who would know the difference? Jace ruffled the man's hair. "Remember me? I'm the guy who shoved that grandma on the street the other day!"

"I gave you a ticket!" The fat man said, and Jace smirked. "Jay Walker!"

"Sure." He smiled, then called without turning his head, "You hungry, _Cole?" _

Fang slipped in behind him, silent as a ghost. "Starved," he said, and Jace enjoyed watching the officer's expression become horrified as the vampiric transition took place across Fang's face. Jace passed the fat man to him like he was just a child. Fang reared back his head, eyes aglow, before digging into the fat man's throat with the starvation of a vampire who hadn't consumed in a very, very long time.

"Hey, _Zane!" _Jace yelled to Ash, who had just taken down the smokers. He whirled. "I think that those guys need a little _assistance!" _

Ash grinned, and lifted his shirt. The smokers, wheezing on the ground, stared in horror as he opened his panel. The many technologies inside were confined, but Ash reached in, grabbing onto a personally programmed switch and flicking it. _"Murderer switch activated," _said a robotic voice, and the smokers gasped for help.

Jace turned away, but heard their shrieks and Ash's fingers digging into their skin. He looked at Kaos. "Come on, Kaos," he said, taking some bottles from the emotionless boy, "let's open this bitch."

They poured the bottles into a large circle in the center of the festival, and the blue glow began to warn the opening of a portal. The black hole that Kaos created became loud, and the hum hurt Jace's head. But when they were done with this, the portal would be irreversible, and the whole land of Ignacia—Kai Smith's home—would be consumed inside the wormhole. He moved out of the circle, Kaos at his side, just as it began to swirl and deepen. "_Beautiful," _Jace breathed, and Kaos crossed his arms over his chest.

"Not yet. We need to leave. I _have _to get that Power."

"The Power? You mean the one Mistress is always talking about?"

Kaos shoved his black hair out of his face. "Yes. The Void. I _need. That. Power! _With that kind of power, we could completely _destroy _Ninjago; she can reawaken the Dark Island. She can consume _anything. _Ninjago could become _ours! _All we need is that girl. And then…" Kaos smirked faintly, as though remembering a distant memory. His orange eyes gleamed, his dark hair falling, shading them. He turned his head to the hole that now began to pick up the winds. Things flew from the tents and stands, yanking them into the inward, swirling blue tornado. It sucked things into the portal, growing as it whence came. Jace tried not to shiver. "This wormhole will consume Ignacia," said Kaos. "Once it consumes it, we must take another gallon and spread it elsewhere. I think the Sea of Sand is a nice place to start, don't you?"

Kaos turned on his heel without waiting for a response. Jace's red hair flipped around his face, giving him one moment to look warily at the wormhole before turning towards his friends. Ash flipped his murder switch; Fang dropped the police officer, bloodless and raw, wiping his hands across his chin; Kayus kicked the remaining police guard in the head before turning to face Kaos. The young boy stalked emotionlessly towards them, showing nothing, not even in the glow of their red eyes. Fang and Ash exchanged glances.

"Where now, Kaos?" asked Fang, crossing his arms over his broad chest. His clean cut black hair swept across his face as the sky darkened, storms emerging from the power that fed the wormhole. It was starting to expand. If they didn't move now, the mass may completely consume them, too. Stuffed novelties, fish in bags, and multiple other trinkets offered as prizes flew from the stands, whereas whole stands were demolished themselves; a steeple would flow and the rest would follow suit. Jace looked at the motorcycle in which Kayus now mounted.

"I need the Void," Kaos grunted, and turned his young eyes towards Fang. They were shrouded beneath his mane of hair. "I need it _now. _I'll send word to the Mistress that we will travel back towards the city. On our way, we will leave wormholes in our wake; one in the Sea of Sand, another in the Birchwood Forest, and another in the Fireman's Circle. We must let those ninja know we're coming."

"Why?" Kayus asked, borrowed face wrinkling. His expression mocked that of Kai Smith's. "Wouldn't it be better to play stealthy?"

"No," Kaos answered monotonically. He turned towards the wormhole, his hair whipping around him, fists clenched beneath their gloves. "I want them to know. Don't judge me."

"Sure thing," Kayus responded after a beat. He looked towards Jace with an uneasy expression. Kaos was their leader, but even so, he wasn't as respected as the Mistress. On the contrary, he _was _the more powerful. If they upset him, he probably would end up hurting someone with a use of excessive power. He inherited it from his father, Kayus had told Jace once. From his father, darkness bloomed.

"I want to leave now," Kaos said with authority. Kayus started up his motorcycle as Ash, Fang, and Jace stepped forward. "I will meet you near the Fireman's Circle, yes?" He passed the recycled green bag to Jace. He covered his eyes as the glow of the wormhole became excessive.

Kaos fingered something inside of his jacket. Jace caught a glimpse of something wrinkled and white: the Map. Fang saw it, too, and reached out his hand. "Kaos!" He shouted over the sucking noise. Jace felt like his soul was trying to be dragged down with the hole that only consumed. "What about the Key? Aren't we going to finish your father's work?"

Bold, but Jace knew that Kaos wouldn't decline. Normally it wasn't like him to wave off anything that the Bizarro said about his father, but he thought he caught a glimpse of hesitation in Kaos' eyes. He jumped onto the back of Kayus' motorcycle and stared, blank, at Fang. "I will get that Key," Kaos said. "Eventually. For now, I am more intent on destroying seven sectors. I will have that Void, and when I do…"

"Noel won't be happy with you," shouted Ash. "You are veering from the plan!"

"Screw him!" Kaos shouted back. The wormhole roared. "He is of no use to me!"

"What would your father say about disrespecting the King?" Jace intercepted, but Kaos shook his head.

"Eloquim is dead," he yelled, "and I don't need to follow a dead man's rules."

With that, Kayus revved the engine, and peeled out of the scene before the wormhole caught them. Fang, Ash, and Jace turned to run away from it, which caused immense struggle, but managed to help them survive. Jace held out the small doses of potion in his hands for each of them to take after they'd hidden behind a whack-a-mole booth. "Drink!" He shouted. "It'll get us out of here!"

"And take us where?" Fang intercepted, but drank his fill. Jace and Ash downed them in one swallow. He could feel the magic beginning to tug at his insides, roving over him completely until there was the sound of echoes harbringing the night. The wormhole screamed like a woman in peril. _Kaos is in charge, _Jace repeated, even though he knew that Kaos was defying the Mistress' rule. He would lead them to destruction _again _if he didn't tune up his act. The Shadow Dancer's son may have understood some, but he didn't know all, and Jace didn't know whether to tell everyone about his personal knowledge or to let sleeping dogs lie. Evil happened, but the majority of the time, it wasn't at this level.

If Kaos wanted Void, then he could get it.

Jace felt himself begin to fade. Ash and Fang disappeared from his vision, and the booth behind them exploded into the wormhole. He whirled, hoping his potion wasn't defected—until he felt a hand clamp around his wrist and yank.

Jace came face-to-face with an angry, angry, white bearded man, whose blue eyes bore into his. His white kimono whirled around him insufferably, unable to be tamed. "You again!" shouted the old man, and Jace recognized him as Sensei Wu, the Ninja's teacher.

"Good to see you too, Gramps," he said.

_"What have you done?!"_ Wu cried, but Jace shook his head.

"It's too late," he said. "Nothin' you can do now! This place is gone for good, as will be your ninjas. You'd better run along and tell them that." Oh, why wasn't the potion working? It should've worked by now! Jace tried not to squirm, wrenching his arm from Sensei's hand just as the wormhole consumed the gambling tent entirely. Wu looked horrified, staring into the ground's mouth, knowing what had become.

"You! You're destroying Ignacia!" He yelped.

Jace cocked his head. "Yup," he responded with a flash of a smile. It was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared. "And you might as well want to go run off, dude. I'm _busy." _He started to walk away, but Sensei Wu grabbed his arm.

"No!"

"_Yes!" _Jace ripped his arm out the grasp, practically tearing the socket. Yeesh, his grip was almost mechanical. He loped forward, but Wu cried towards him again. He ignored it—until he saw four black, dark forms jump from the buildings and onto the ground in front of him. He stepped back when he saw the ninja suits, the lower halves of their faces completely covered. The boy staring back at him had intense brown eyes, and his hair, brown, whipped around his face. He looked like he'd seen everything out of nothing. Jace stepped away from him as he saw a small kid, no older than ten, jump forward, blonde and wearing the same outfit, only smaller.

"You're doomed," said the little kid cheerfully. Jace stared at the boy as two girls came to his side. One with her black hair in a bun, and the other with mousy brown tucked into a braid. The almond eyes of the bunned woman looked inquisitive. The large round ones of the mousy girl stared determined into his. Jace took a step backwards.

"Who…? Who are you?" He asked. These did _not _look like the other ninja.

The elder boy stood straighter, pulling a shuriken from his wrap. Jace saw him move it like he _knew _he would win. "My name is Daijiro. And I do believe that you've stolen the face of my teacher's other student." He looked down at the little boy, who seemed too eager to attack. "Bokuyo? Would you like to—"

"YEEESSS!" Without waiting, Bokuyo propelled himself off the ground, launching towards Jace. He stuck up his hands to fend off the boy—but found what flew at him was no longer a boy, but a tall, whisky black raven, cawing and soaring towards his face. It aimed its hooked claws for Jace's eyes. He smacked his hands through the air, but hit nothing; he felt the bird digging its talons into his skin. With pained shrieks, Jace backed away, trying to escape. The bird attacked with ferocious squawks of determination. He heard the voice come from nothing. "My mommy is the Queen of Crows," he said cheerily. "And my daddy is a hero. So naturally I come ready. Isn't that fun?" The boy laughed—er, the _crow _laughed with a little boy's voice. Jace fell flat onto his back and waved his hands. Blood ran down the holes that the talons, sharp and unyielding, had dug into his skin; with a shriek, it grabbed onto his cheeks and yanked. Jace screamed for mercy. Blood poured from his face. "NO!" He screamed, but it was too late. The sucking feeling against his soul had risen, as did the wormhole's perimeter, and he now, with a yank, was flung into the depths of it, spiraling, falling, dying into this wormhole that would take him somewhere he didn't belong—

* * *

**The Bizaaarrroooo! **le gasp! So _that's _how Kai was framed!

**Sorry **for bad quality of chapter? ^^ Will repay you next time! Busy busy!

**Please **review, and **go have an awesome day/night! **We'll see you right back here next time!

~Kairi


	19. Chapter 19

**CHAPTER NINETEEN:  
**Hope is Light  
_Yang_

The knife sliced through the air, sailing quicker than I would've thought possible. The noise it made rippled across the dim aura of the room. I found myself looking towards Seiko, watching her, as if held in time's hands, slowly lean away with growing fear on her face. Her back hit the counter, and she knew she had nowhere to go. I turned my head towards the knife, traveling with the force of a vampire's strength behind it, quicker it would've if it was thrown by a human. There wasn't gap time. Except I found that in adrenaline-high situations, I saw things a little slower than normal. It was always impossible to stop these situations, really. I mean, catching a knife never happened, unless you were the star of a Clutch Powers movie, which actually was just a bunch of CGI effects. I reached out, intending probably to have the knife slice through my hand rather than go through Seiko's body, but instead finding the outcome completely different than I thought.

It was like reaching out to catch a ball when your friend threw it at you. Instinctively, you just did it because you saw something flying at you. I reacted just like that, sticking out my hand, and wrapping my hand around it the second that I thought I was going to capture it.

Beating the strength of a _vampire_, demolishing the fact that it traveled faster than a pro pitcher's highest speed, I felt the plastic hilt clutched in between my finger and my sweaty palm, but intact nonetheless.

Inches from Seiko's face.

She stared down the sharp point, her eyes crossed. Her breathing, as it normally happened with adrenaline, had been held. She stood rigid. I found _myself _staring at the knife with as much wonder and shock that painted everyone else's face. How…how had I _caught _that? It was an impossible task, unmanageable to do unless, it seemed, you were a vampire. But I wasn't a vampire. Except I'd moved _just as fast as Cole. _I had caught it, stopped it from hurting Seiko—how did I do it?

_My dear boy, _whispered the Eye, startling me. My heart beat faster in my chest with fear. _You are as supernatural as he is, are you not? While the girl may be Yin, my brother, you are the Yang. You create. She takes away. The balance, as I have said, is how it rocks. The Sacred Balance. You have as much strength and ability as she does—you've known she can move quicker now, like a teleportation device, since her death. Her transformation didn't just completely take over her body. It took over yours, too. You just did not notice._

Seiko's gaze slowly moved from the knife's point, trembling in front of her face. Her own body quaked with the intensity of this whole situation. Her gawk crawled over my whitened knuckles, my strained wrist, my arm and shoulders, towards my face. She took a sharp intake of breath. Obviously, she didn't know how to react any better than I did. My heart was all I could hear in my ears. _Look what I had done…_with my strength. Look. I'd stopped a knife moving at the speed of a bullet. I'd stopped it from killing a girl. I had stopped it. Oh, jeezus, look at what I had done!

_I see. _

The voice didn't belong to the Eye, as it normally did. It belonged to me. But it didn't sound entirely like me. My voice…was low. Gravelly, like normal, but darker. Sadistic. Knowing of something that would happen but would never tell what. I started to pull the knife slowly away from Seiko's face, living in a daze, when I felt a sharp pain stab my brain. I cried out, dropping the knife and bending over. _I already saw, Lloyd, but saving her isn't good enough, _said that voice of mine, that I really hadn't thought myself. I heard the Eye give a blast of warning. _You know just stopping that knife isn't what needs to happen. _The pain exploded in my head, stabbing me multiple times. I doubled over, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes. "—_Gah_—" I gasped like I'd never had any breath before. My knees wobbled underneath me. I whimpered into the air loud enough to scare someone—and that someone was Kai.

"Lloyd!" I felt his hands wrap around me as supernovas exploded in my brain. Fireworks of all shapes, colors, and sizes erupted. They made my eyes burn, heavy, and my chest feel full. I couldn't even _think _with that kind of pain. It literally _did _feel like someone grabbed the knife out of my hand and slashed my brain over and over again with it. I grunted into the air. I clenched my teeth to somehow edge away the pain, but it only brought the effect on my headache/migraine worse.

"Lloyd!" I heard Danielle's voice, and more hands touching me, but I really, really didn't want her touching me. How many more times was I going to get screwed over by my mothers? First, Misako abandoned me at Darkley's for the majority of my life. Then, I find out that Misako was _not _my mother, and that Danielle, this teenager, was. Was it really fair that I was continuing to have the mother proble—

_Let me have a look, hmm? _said my voice. It reverberated off the walls of my skull. I opened my mouth to gather an intake, but that was a bad idea on my part.

_SNAP. _The bands lacing together that part of me that was able to stay sane broke into two pieces. The good in me, which seemingly only came back when I experienced trauma, disappeared again.

_I did not invade you for nothing, Lloyd. Stopping that knife was not all that needs to happen. You know what else to do…_

_…_

Kai held onto Lloyd. God, the kid was shaking so badly, he could've started an earthquake. Cole seemed completely unfazed, but Danielle had come to his side, her hands fluttering nervously across his body. "Lloyd?" Kai asked, gathering him into his arms. He felt bad for stealing him completely from Dani, but he couldn't help but cradle Lloyd's head against him. Feverish, the boy squirmed, whimpering. He muttered something that Kai couldn't hear. "It's okay, buddy, you'll be fine…"

Then it was like he snapped back into motion. Ripping himself out of Kai's grasp, Lloyd jumped to his feet, completely restored. Except…his eyes. His eyes burned a deeper red than before. His mouth, which before had parted in fear, now twisted into a haughty, soulless smirk. His golden eyebrows furrowed. He looked up at him in complete confusion. The flushed, beautiful kid that had stood before Kai a second ago now stared towards Cole with hate written across his features. His face snarled.

And so did Cole.

The sound made Kai shiver, but Lloyd didn't even blink. Dani looked at Kai with worry across her expression. That, and fear. Kai grabbed onto his friend's leg. "Lloyd, what are you—"

He ignored him. Standing in front of Seiko, he crossed his arms over his chest, Lloyd Garmadon looked _exactly _like Lord Garmadon when he was evil, except a strange look was on his face. Kai couldn't describe it, but he looked murderous—exactly the intentions. "I hate vampires," Lloyd said easily, as though he was saying how much he didn't like quizzes. "I really, really do. _Especially _when they become psychopathic idiots who try to kill their little sisters. Seiko doesn't deserve that from _you, _some idiotic freak who sucks the life out of people for fun."

Cole crouched. Maya had slipped out from behind him to observe with a smirk on her face; she was enjoying this immensely. Kai was about ready to walk over there and slap her across the face, but he wouldn't do that. Lloyd was…well, not acting like himself. Even his voice seemed different.

"I don't care what you like," Cole hissed, his face changing again. The veins under his eyes blackened.

Lloyd's chin lowered. The expression shadowed his eyes, making him look even more menacing. His smile deepened into that of someone who was ready to do bad. Kai leaped to his feet, but he wasn't fast enough.

Lloyd launched himself across the room. Before he knew it, he and Cole were two brawling, tussling masses across the floor, slamming into the linoleum with an echo of repentance through the house. The china in the cabinet shivered. Kai stepped forward. Cole made terrible, feral sounds, howls and hisses of attack. Within seconds against the vampire strength, Lloyd had managed to pin Cole against the ground and shove him against the floor, hard. Kai ran towards them, but Cole kicked Lloyd off, sending him flying into the wall at the far corner. He heard Dani scream in shock. "Lloyd!" Kai shouted, but the Green Ninja found his footing quickly, throwing himself at Cole. The vampire hissed loudly and slammed him against the table, jarring it a foot backwards. Lloyd swung a punch. Battling contrary to a vampire with his smaller size, Lloyd was doing particularly well, but Kai still worried. He ran forward to try and intervene, but Cole had already born his fangs at Lloyd. The blow the ninja sent hit Cole across the jaw and sent him flying backwards, too. Skidding across the tile, Cole scrambled to find his footing, but Lloyd's Spinjitzu picked him up and sent him flying across the room—right into the window.

Glass shattered, and Kai held up his arms to block the splinters from hitting him. The sound was loud and insane. He saw Maya drop to the floor; Dani wrapped her arm around Seiko's shoulders and bent them to shield them from the flying, pointed objects. The pieces were so fine, they bounced right off Kai's sweatshirt. He couldn't say the same for Cole, though, who had flown completely through the glass. He turned to Lloyd. "Stop!" he shouted at him, but the eyes that turned on him did not belong to the little boy he'd once known. They were cerise—and merciless. Lloyd waved a hand at him.

"Step aside, hothead," he dismissed. Kai felt like Lloyd had just punched the air out of him.

He heard the sound of footsteps. "What is going on?!" Zane cried, bursting into the kitchen with Jay on his heels, still groggy with sleep. Likewise, he also heard footsteps pounding down the staircase. Lloyd shoved aside the table in the middle of the scene with surprising brute strength. It hit the wall so hard it broke completely, collapsing loudly into more than one large piece against the ground. He heard someone cry out at the scene.

"Lloyd!" Kai heard Misako exclaim. Lloyd didn't even acknowledge her. His head bowed in assessment at the same moment Kai listened to the shift of glass.

Cole burst through the window, a movement of blackness in the night. He launched himself through the gaping hole with a sound like a lion, prepared to attack. Lloyd met him full on with his hands, grabbing the vampire mid-air and throwing him again. Cole landed neatly on his feet, appearing at Lloyd's side. It was light a battle between ballet dancers who could time travel; they were too quick for Kai to process. Cole grabbed the collar of Lloyd's jacket and hurled him into the air, but Lloyd seemed to be friends with oxygen. He held out his hands and, moving backwards, aimed his hands directly at Cole's hissing body. A burst of green power detonated from his hands and _right into Cole. _The vampire squealed in pain and, with a defeated howl, succumbed to falling to the ground underneath the envelope of power. Lloyd found his footing nicely onto the floor, but Cole lay, sprawled next to the wall, unmoving.

"COLE!" Maya screamed, high pitched and almost indecipherable. She moved as quick as Cole had, appearing at his side to kneel beside him, while Lloyd crossed his arms over his chest in triumphance. Kai looked to Zane and Jay, who, mind-blown beside him, stared in shock. Misako, with a shawl wrapped around her, gray hair loose, put a hand over her mouth. Edna and Ed moved into the kitchen beside Lou, who looked to his son with a cry. He ran for him in horror.

Lloyd dusted off his arm as though _he'd _been the one rough-housed. Kai didn't know what to think. Here was his best friend, emotionless and hateful and fighting one of his _other friends. _It was the venom, overthrowing him, turning him into this monster before him who cared about nothing but death and bleeding and dying and murder. This wasn't how Lloyd's arrival was supposed to go; it was supposed to be filled with love and smiling and reuniting and Kai being able to embrace his best friend because he hadn't seen him in so long. Instead, it was a blood battle between siblings, between brothers, and it wasn't even understandable. Lloyd was looking to pick a fight, as a rowdy kid may have. Kai was so stressed, so in the deep, that his head began to ache. Lloyd wasn't Lloyd, not like this. He was…destroyed Lloyd. He wasn't the Green Ninja. He was just some shell that looked like him but never would be. He squeezed shut his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He couldn't let Lloyd do this to himself. The poor kid needed help, and that's exactly what Kai would give him…in the morning. When they left for the monastery, Kai would see to helping Lloyd fight the venom inside. Maybe Misako could help, too, since she'd been with Garmadon. Garmadon…where was he, anyway? Didn't he make it into the Underworld?

The black-haired girl that Kai knew from his dream moved away from Dani, moving towards Lloyd. Kai saw fury written across her face. "What the hell are you _thinking, _Snickerdoodles?!" She screamed. God, she looked angry. Angry enough to make Kai wince. Lloyd looked at her coolly.

"He hurt you," he said simply, and tapped his temple.

Seiko took a moment to process it. Her features smoothed for the briefest nanosecond before replaced by stone-cold rage. "You _idiot!" _she screamed. Lloyd raised an eyebrow at her. "Don't you think I can _handle myself?! _I didn't _need _you!"

"It looked like it to _me," _Lloyd argued back, his eyes going hard. Kai saw Lou whirl at the sound of Seiko's voice. "I mean, you were just standing there. What, were you going to let it go right through you and hope that the hospital wasn't far away?"

Seiko's face turned cold. "I could've _handled _it," she hissed angrily. "How many more times are you going to play superhero before you realize that _I don't need you and never will?" _

Without waiting for his response, Seiko whirled, running towards her brother without even bothering to look back. Kai registered the jaw clench on Lloyd's face, the angry flash in his eyes. She ticked him the wrong way.

"_SEIKO?!" _cried Lou, and Kai moved his gaze over to them. She'd frozen halfway through the kitchen, staring at him in shock. The look on his face widened into astonishment. His hair was disheveled from sleep, but he still looked clean cut, if not a little strangely. Kai stepped forward. Cole had just begun to sit up, with Maya's help, with a groan. It was a good relief he was alive, a thankful moment that was well waited for.

"_Lou?" _Seiko gasped. She looked horrified, afraid of something. She started to back away. "W-what are you doing here?" She stammered.

"You're alive," he whispered. His tone sounded relieved, but Seiko looked anything but happy about being near him. She looked scared, too scared to be standing there. Lou jumped to his feet. "Oh, my daughter, you're _alive! _Oh, my little girl—"

His parade towards her was cut off quickly by his daughter, who shook her head and held out her hands. "_No," _she gasped, sounding pained. Lou froze in his tracks and stared.

…

Lou looked into his daughter's eyes, searching for something, but his little girl refused to look at him. Her hands were the barrier. She turned her head to the side and squeezed shut her eyes, now a strange tint of blue over the previous, beautiful gray. _She _even looked different: her skin was shades too pale, a pasty white, and her lips were far too red. He thought perhaps someone had treated her to makeup, but then remembered his daughter not to like those things. She looked, above all, dirty, which he never knew her to mind. Her rejection hurt him deeply. He knew that maybe he deserved it, but to wish for many years that she would accept him again must've been striving too far. Lou had heard much of this ache, much of the awful hurt inside of her that he'd created. He was a terrible father. Who sent their daughter away? But he'd been too scared to let her stay. Her brother, then a newborn vampire, had been watching her with a hunger in his eyes that Lou had known would one day drive him to harm her. Sending her to school had been his beginning plan—until he realized that his daughter was less than sane. Her insanity began young, and he'd been so flustered, too stressed, too depressed by his wife's death to deal with it. There was no excuse for what Lou had done unto his daughter, but he wanted, oh, did he want it! He wanted her to love him as he had loved her. It may not have always seemed like it. He _knew _it hadn't. He wasn't great at expressing his feelings—Cole inherited that straight from him—but he wanted the people around him to know exactly how it happened, when it happened, and who for his emotions came. Lou reached out his arms again. She needed to hear him say it, just once.

"Baby," he whispered, hating the quiver in his voice. Seiko shook her head. He had to go on. "I know what I have done has hurt you, but my dear, please listen—"

"Listen to what?" Seiko snapped. Her eyes wouldn't open. "To you feeding me crap about how much you love me? You are full of it, Lou, you really are. No loving father ships their daughter away how you did."

Lou numbed the ache in his chest. "I know what I did was wrong, but I did it to protect you—"

"What_ever!" _Seiko cackled loudly, evocative of her insane laughter. Lou felt chills creep up his spine. It made him remember what of her had scared him so much into sending her to Sunnyside. "Protect me from what? You know, I'm _glad _you sent me away. I'm also glad that you had to pay for all forty corpses you hid, Twinkletoes." The old nickname stabbed Lou in the stomach. He shook his head, trying to let her see, but Seiko wouldn't. Finally, her hands dropped, and her eyes, showing now, bled the insanity he'd once seen. Was it he who brought it out in her? "I wonder if anyone is missing Jackie, or Tom, or Helga."

"I wouldn't have had to pay such large fines to hide them if you hadn't _killed_ them, m'dear," Lou said patiently. The irrationality sparkled in her eyes again, mischievous. "It doesn't matter how much I had to pay, love," he held open his arms, "as long as I know you are safe, and fed, and cared for, which now I can give with my own power."

She looked at his arms, contemplating. Lou felt a spark of hope rise from within him. Maybe she would really walk into them, and forgive him for what he'd done. But then, he knew he was dreaming when she tilted back her head and laughed again. Once, brisk, and hard. Her blue eyes were uniform. "You and Cole are so much alike, you could be twins," she said flatly. "Do you really think promises of love are what will bring me crawling back to you? Are all of you men really so stupid?" She gestured backwards towards Lloyd, who cocked an eyebrow at her. The wind from the broken window swept inside and tousled her beautiful, thin black hair around her face. "Do you think you can bring me running when you say that you love me, that you'll care about me forever? Is that really how you see me? Desperate?" She looked pleading. Lou seized it. She didn't want him to say yes to her, she wanted him to say something otherwise.

"You always wanted us to tell you we loved you," he said after a moment of hesitation. "You begged for us to say it all the time."

"Because you treated me like _crap!" _Seiko shouted. The wind had started to become rougher. Now, it was so abrupt that Lloyd noticed it, dragging his shoulders to his ears and turning, one lifted beside him, to stare into the blackness. His hands were shoved into his jacket pockets. Lou watched an expression of trepidation cross his face, nostrils flared, and lips puckered fully, before the boy actually turned to look at Seiko. His eyes said he knew something Lou didn't. They were hard and wary all at once. Lou questioned with his face, but Lloyd wouldn't look at him.

"Do you really think I'm so pathetic? I wanted to know you _did _because I never _believed you! _You always _lied _to me about it!_" _Seiko threw up her hands in the air.

And all the shadows in the room were dragged upwards with it.

…

**_YANG_**

_Crap, _I thought at the exact same moment as her moving hands opted in. Every shadow, every darkness in a nook and cranny, rose with the movement, lifting into the air. They hung suspended as the wind from outside flew in, quick enough to dust her hair into her face. It seemed like a storm was brewing, but I was the only one who knew better. The Eye had told me any single eruption of emotion would make the balance become upset. Now, it looked like she was disrupted of peace. I watched, tranquil, as her hands sucked every little shadow from their places and into the air beside her. It was scary to see everything without shadow, missing, absent. There was never any way to _not _have shadow, yet somehow she'd done it. That was Void for you, I guessed. Seiko didn't seem to notice, again ranting to her father without a care. I knew that if she continued, something awful would become a consequence. But how to stop it?

I thought of the only way I knew how. _Where there is light,_ _there will always be shadow…_

Unless my light is bright enough.

…

Seiko waved her arms madly. The shadows that she manipulated cascaded around her, as though they were ocean waves in consort with the weather. Misako's eyes followed it with fascination; never before had she seen something so marvelous. She watched Zane cock his head like a bird, interested, while Jay looked upset. She remembered reading something, once about the bender of darkness, the Yin of a Yang, when she was reading up on everything she could for Lloyd, way back when. Wondering if that was so now, Misako took a step forward. So did her son.

Lloyd's hands began to glow a golden light, and the shadows creaked around it, trying to avoid being touched. Seiko continued her rave, oblivious; why was it that Lloyd didn't want to stop her from obsessing this magic? Why didn't he say anything? _I don't need your help, _Seiko had said, and Misako nodded slowly. He was helping without her having to know.

Though he was tainted, her son was still—and always would be—Lloyd.

But that was not the case. That was not the case at all.

…

Dani watched Lloyd move his hands methodically. The shadows began to weave around, and his fingers became like little candles, chasing away bedtime fears. It was hard to see him as her son, because he seemed so strong willed, when Dani normally felt like crumbling apart. She took a hesitant step forward. Not having moved since the window shattered, her muscles felt taut, too stretched for their own good to elsewise. She reached out her hand as if to touch the golden rays. It was magnificent, better than any magic that she'd ever been able to create. He was amazing. His power was amazing. Like he was commanding water with his hands, the little lights wove their way through the tendrils of darkness, a combination of salt on wounds. The shadows did not enjoy it and immediately slunk away. Until Seiko waved her arm in a broad sweep, that is.

Then, without mercy, they all combined into a large wave again, and it was aimed directly at Lloyd.

…

Jay squeaked as the wall of black nothingness collided with the blonde guy. He fell, sprawling and dropping the pretty lights immediately, across the black and white tile, skidding into the cupboards with a look of surprise on his face. The thump his impact made forced the black haired girl to whirl around. "_What _are you doing, Snickerdoodles?!" She growled, obviously angry. Her tone was like a mother scolding a child. Which, by the way, was a weird simile to make, since she looked younger than him. "I can feel you doing something. What were you doing?!"

The boy called "Snickerdoodles" sat from the debris of glass, dusting it off his arms. Kai rushed towards him to help him up, but the boy waved him off. "I don't need to be babied," he snapped. Kai rolled his eyes.

"I'm not babying you. I'm looking out for you."

"Yeah, well, quit it. It's annoying." The boy got to his feet, swiping off the shards off his body. He looked irritated, _and _tired. Facing the black-haired girl, he said coolly, "You were doing your little Void thing again, and you smacked me."

"I was _not!" _the girl argued.

"Yes, you were. What, did you think I was just going to take a nap on the floor?" The boy growled. He gestured to the floor. Walking forward a few paces, kicking aside bits of glass, he faced her. "You were moving shadows, princess. I was trying to stop it when you whacked me."

"_What _did I tell you about the nicknames?!" She howled. The boy shook his head.

"Will you shut up and _listen _to me?" He asked, holding out his hands, but she slapped them away.

"No one listens to _me, _Snickerdoodles, so why should I listen to you?" She countered. His face twisted into a mask that didn't fit right. He looked too angry for his angelic face.

"Because you're so _annoying," _he answered, and grabbed her hand. "Just be quiet and try to calm down, will you? We don't want you to—"

"GET YOUR FREAKIN' HANDS OFF OF ME, RAPIST!" the girl wailed. She wrenched her hand out of his. With the force of it, her arm swung backwards. She did that weird thing with the darkness again, which it looked to be involuntary. Except this time, no one ever saw the refrigerator again.

…

"Did she just…where did the…" Kai pointed towards Seiko, then towards where the fridge _should _have been, but was no longer. Along the floor, bubbling clouds of black fog moved, curling around her legs like an animal begging to be noticed. Seiko stared in shock, just like the rest of them did, watching it. The shadow had just passed over the giant, stainless steel appliance, and then it was _gone. _Just…gone. Zip, nada, zero. It wasn't there anymore. Where was it? And _how _in the hell had she made it disappear?

If Seiko could've gotten any whiter, she would've. It was the perfect time to pale. She stared in a jolt, her hands clapping over the top of her mouth to portray that. She watched the darkness bubble and then slowly fade. It sunk into the ground, disappearing, an alligator crawling underneath the bog's surface once more. Kai didn't exactly know what he was supposed to say, do, or react like. How do you act on something like that?

"Oh, no…" Seiko gasped underneath her hands. She looked like she was going to cry. "Oh, no, oh, no, oh, _no! _It's _gone!" _

"Yeah, your shadows ate it," said Cole, standing from the ground. Kiko laid a protective hand on his bicep, which made Kai bristle. He reminded himself to talk to her about whatever she'd done later, but for now, there were bigger matters.

"Oh, my God, I—I'm so, so sorry, I wasn't trying to—" Seiko's eyes filled. Her voice crumbled into nothing. Kai tried to understand what exactly she wasn't _trying _to do. Her hands slid up her face and covered her eyes. She masked herself behind them. Kai noticed that she had something strange on the back of her hand—a tattoo? Lloyd seemed to soften at the sight of her angst and reached out a hand to pat her on the head.

"Told ya," he said.

…

Misako stepped forward, her motherly movements taking her closer to Seiko. The poor girl must've been completely scared. She gave Lou a tender smile as she passed, and found Seiko to be smaller up close than she was from a distance. The young girl trembled. _She's only lost, _Misako thought, and stroked a gentle hand down her hair. Seiko peeked through her fingers at who was touching her. For a moment, Misako considered that the girl would suck her into the darkness, too, but found that wasn't the case, either. Instead, Seiko was bendy enough for Misako to pull her into her arms and tuck her head underneath her chin. She remembered what it was like to be a young, teenage girl, but her knowledge didn't go far enough to show her what it was like to be stuck in an asylum or bend the darkness at will. She made soft noises for comfort and stroked Seiko's hair. Surely, slowly, she felt the girl's arms begin to wrap around her. "There, there," she murmured, and Seiko buried her face in Misako's neck. She had to be exhausted beyond all belief, as did Lloyd appear. He fought off fatigue in droopy eyelids. No matter if the fridge was gone; they would all leave this place behind tomorrow, anyway. Misako rubbed Seiko's shoulders. She hadn't lived with a mother for all the years she must've needed her, but instead nurses and aides that she did not need; this moment was sacred to Misako _and _Seiko. Misako had always wanted a daughter, but she was never able to give birth to babies. Maybe now, she could take advantage of this.

"You must be tired," Misako whispered, and Seiko trembled. "I know there's a special cozy bed upstairs with a roommate who would _love _to meet you." Seiko made a noise that Misako couldn't decipher as either happiness or sadness; she was just a tired little girl who needed to be loved. Misako transferred her shawl from her shoulders to Seiko's, and gave a tender smile when she saw the girl's eyes begin to droop. She leaned back enough to wrap her arms around Seiko's shoulders. "Come, my dear, let's get you some warmer clothes and off to bed, hmm?"

Seiko didn't look at anyone as she passed. Misako didn't blame her. Jay moved out of the doorway for her to softly usher the girl out the kitchen of bad memories; softly as a bird's midnight hum, there was a whistle for attention. Seiko turned her tired face towards the doorway.

It was Zane. His smile was happy and, though he was sleepy, comforting. His hands rested on the doorframe as he murmured a soft goodbye to the little darkness-bender. "It was nice meeting you," he said, friendly. Something in Seiko's eyes shifted—a lightness, a ray of something peering past the clouds shrouding her face.

And then they were gone.

…

"You're all so tired. You just…need rest," Edna cooed. She patted Jay's shoulders, and he rubbed his eyes. Oh, she loved him so much; she just wished his memories would return. With a gentle smile, she said, "Take Cole up to bed with you, please. He's full."

Cole looked bushed. Lou stared at the floor, traumatized, his expression sad and unhappy. Edna touched his shoulder. "Better things will come," she promised, and Lou offered a barely-smile. She knew it hurt for your children to hate. She saw it every day now, but what they had to remember that it wasn't their children that was driving them so mad. It was the world that they lived in.

Jay looked incapacitated. A zombie moving on his own, he grabbed onto Zane's shirt and yawned, eyes closed. "Cmm..onnn, Colll….e. Lessgo." He grabbed the air with his free hand, even though Cole was so far away. The vampire rubbed his forehead, but moved towards them. The second he came within range, Jay latched himself onto the dark clothing and squeezed shut his eyes. "Carry me hither," he moaned, and Cole thunked him on the head.

"Okay, _dweeb, _use your feet." He said it with snark, but there was a familiar smile on his face. It warmed Edna's heart to toast. She looked towards Ed, glad that their son was still himself, if not better. Zane looked like a child, sleepy after a glass of warm milk. They'd seen too much excitement today. They deserved a nice, long rest. She patted Cole on the back with a smart smile. The vampire offered a small one back.

"You all need your sleep," she said. "Guide him up the stairs, please, dears? I'd hate for him to fall and break his face."

Zane smiled at her. "Of course, Edna." He put his hand on Jay's back. She was startled at how easily he now pronounced her name. Had he suddenly learned better, or was it a result of his sleepiness? No matter, she smiled largely at him. They were making progress, then. "What of this mess, though?" He inquired. Edna looked around her warily.

"I'll fix it," Danielle offered, and Edna smiled. Magic, of course, would bring the kitchen back to normal. The blonde girl showed no emotion as she stepped forward to move aside the pieces of the kitchen table Lloyd had broken.

"Off to bed!" Edna whistled. The boys began to walk, the three amigos latched together. Kai and Lloyd lingered, and what for Edna didn't know; maybe they had something to say. She watched Jay move into the hallway with Zane's assistance. They disappeared around the corner, a sign they'd moved up the staircase. Edna sighed and turned back to the mess. This would take a while to clean. She wouldn't feel right if she didn't help at least a little.

"Wait!" cried a voice, and Edna turned again at the sound of her son's voice. In his groggy state, he shuffled back down the hallway, eyes half closed still. Edna raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"What can I do for ya, dear?" She asked.

Instead of answering, Jay reached out his arms and pulled her into them. He looked tired enough to sleep on his feet; she was startled at this behavior. Normally, Jay didn't come around her much. But the hug was so warm, his face pressed into her hair, his arms wrapped around her, that Edna couldn't resist holding him back. She beamed into his shoulder. "I jus' wanted to say," he slurred, "'night, Mom. Nigh', Dad."

Edna froze. Jay released her, and, at the call of Zane, shuffled away again, completely asleep on his feet, but his voice still lingered in the air between them all. Jay had called her _Mom. _He had just called her _Mom. _She slowly turned towards Ed, beginning to beam. Ed stared back with his brown eyes alight. Was this a sign? Had something happened? Did he get his memory back?

Only time, they found, would tell.

* * *

**^-^ My heart **warmed being able to write that. Okay. Break Day from Naru is over, and there you guys have it! XD **Wow. **A lot happened today. Anyway, **please review, **and **go have an awesome day/night!**

~Kairi


	20. Chapter 20

**CHAPTER TWENTY:  
**My Heart Mocks Drums  
_-Yang-_

I found my room just like I had left it. The walls were still a deep blue, covered with nothing but a couple of shelves and a warped sense of movement. My single ray of light, a square window hanging in the corner, was dark. Nothing about my room had been touched since I was gone. My drawers still hung open with the contents spilled amuck. My bed was still unmade, and my closet was still wide open, with my shirts only hanging half onto their hangers. The small container that had housed the most deadly arachnid ever mutated rested on the desk across the center of my wall, open wide, ready. I wasn't gonna lie; it was a total mess. I stepped into the room and kicked aside various sheets and items. I'd really left this place in complete fear, hadn't I? The door to the bathroom connected to my room hung wide open. I had forgotten what those days felt like, when I was still an emotional kid. It was really weird to think that it was only months ago that I had been running out the door of this place, afraid for my life and coughing up blood consistently.

Across my nightstand, the lamp was off. The hood hung over a framed picture that I now stepped forward to take in my hands. It was a photo of me and Kai, standing aboard the _Bounty, _just briefly having turned when Nya had called our names. The photo was spontaneous, so neither of us had been able to put on a real smile, but I could see the light in Kai's eyes. Behind us, the sunset burned brightly, although it was nothing in comparison to the happiness on Kai's face. He looked happy, lively, real. He was the Kai I knew before these stressful things had begun to happen again. I didn't even want to look at my _own _self. I had to force my eyes to the left, where I stood, staring at the camera with a surprised look on my face. My eyes, blue and tender, reflected of the deep conversation I'd been having up until Nya had run in with that camera of hers. The one she had refused to put down for months after the Overlord was gone. It was her determination to fully complete her collection of memories for us. I had put up with it, though I was camera shy. A smile toyed on my lips now, trying to break free then again suppressed by the venomous steel inside of me. The memory was there, but it hurt to remember.

The picture was silly to everyone else, but I had loved it the second Nya showed it to me. It wasn't my image that appealed to me. It was the emotion behind it. Kai was my favorite person in the world then, where I'd always looked up to him and loved him with all my heart. The way we'd been so easily chatting, leaning against the railing—I hadn't been able to have a real conversation with someone like that before. Ever. It had made me want more. I was a starving child dying for the splendors of average human life, and Kai gave that to me without yield. I knew of no other way to live.

Now, that emotion seemed lost on me. That damn humanity switch. When I'd flipped it, I'd really screwed myself over, hadn't I? It was stuck between _off _and _on, _like when you go to hit the light switch and the bulb won't turn on before you realize that the flick was caught. I could feel sometimes. I could feel certain things. But they were dim, practically fictional. Half the time I didn't even know if they were real. The picture frame was solid underneath my fingers, yet my thoughts were liquid in my brain. I couldn't understand completely what I had done with myself. I _wanted _to feel _so badly—_I wanted to be excited to see Kai, determined to end this whole ball of crap that had started on myself, worried about my brothers and, hell, worried about _Seiko. _I wanted things to be normal again. Why did I have to become so evil? Why did I allow myself to get taken over?

Before I could snap the frame in half out of subconscious anger, I set it down on the counter and bent to pick up some of my things. Drowning in overtiredness, my body slowly reacted when I told it to pick up my pillow and set it on the bed. I wasn't strong enough to do any more than kick my clothing towards the base of the hamper in the corner. I had to fight the venom inside of me. I had to somehow beat it better than my father had. It was possible, right? I could do anything as long as I tried. Yeah. That's it. I smiled faintly as I pulled off my shirt, tossing it into the pile I'd made. I needed to…to shower before bed. I felt disgusted with myself. I hadn't decently prepared myself for any hygiene in a while. Warm water would be ni…

The faucet was hard to move from that large break time since it was last used. I managed to wrench it towards the hot water, and kicked off the rest of my clothes to step inside. I practically drilled the whole bottle of body wash into myself, even if I wasn't catching the dirt from within me. The faucet spouted warmth down my back, across my waist; God, did it feel good. I tilted back my head to relish the way it poured across my skin.

How did I let myself get this way? I wondered to myself, rubbing a soap bar across the back of my neck. How did I let myself go? Hell. What was _wrong _with me? I had the strength, the will to defeat all evil—including myself—once. Where did that go?

For a bare moment, I wished I had the determination that Seiko did. She was better at sticking to her plans than I was. When she set her mind to something, I could just tell she was going to do it, no questions asked, no stopping to marvel the flowers. She was a no-crap kind of person. Was I feeding myself crap, or was this really going to be the death of me? There had to be an antidote to my random washes of evilness. I would eventually turn evil like Garmadon if I let this go on untreated. Could I get help from Sensei? Would he know what to do?

The stab of melancholy almost didn't exist. I hoped that Garmadon had made it to a hospital, although thinking about it was silly. Of course he had; the Dragon knew what he was doing. And speaking of the Garmadon brothers, Sensei had been vague about what he wanted me to do, but I'd heard his voice loud and clear. I wasn't going to say exactly what he'd told me since it might make me wince. The end result revolved around something ultimately painful. The venom was in my blood, wasn't it?

What if all that contaminated blood was just…gone? Then what?

Cole's face flashed in my mind. I doubted he'd help me. I mean, I _had _tried to kill him earlier, after all, which I regretted. I didn't know what had driven me to believe that was the solution. The real me was _not _okay with that. I had to apologize in the morning. Would it be possible for me to bleed myself of the venom until there was none left? I'd lost so much blood already—to the Arachnaeus, to having the crud beat out of me, to everything, really—that it may not be the best idea. But what other choice did I have? Every time my heart thumped, it fed the venom. Over time, that poison would continue to spread, until I ended up to _really _be Garmadon's son. (I was _not _going to think about parents right now. I was way too tired for even _this _kind of deep thought.) The result wasn't one I hoped for. I would discuss it with someone; Kai, most likely, my confidant and go-to guy. That is, if he looked at me the same after what had happened earlier.

I stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around my lower half. I dabbed away the droplets clinging to my face; without bothering to stare at my reflection in the mirror, I padded out into my bedroom. The clock on the wall said it was 2:30 in the morning. _Good gravy, _I thought, and rubbed my eyes. That shower had felt great. What would feel better was a pair of sweatpants, an old T-shirt, and my comforter wrapped around my body. It had been _waaayyy _too long since I'd slept in a bed.

A bed. _My _bed. Which, actually, now had a person in it.

I froze, unsure of how to react when you found somebody in your room, awkwardly standing there with your midsection covered. I found him flipping lazily through a book I knew he wasn't actually reading; Kai's appearance stunned me into thinking he was some stranger. I felt my cheeks flame when he glanced up to see me _indecently _standing there in the doorway. Good freaking thing that my bedroom was attached to this bathroom. I would've died if I was walking across the hall and Misako walked up or something. At least it was just Kai.

Instead of the typical, "What are youdoing in my room?" I decided that I'd give out something to take the focus off of me. "If you're looking to get something more than a dainty hello, you probably should look somewhere else; I'm freaking tired."

Kai grinned, setting aside the book onto my nightstand and sitting up. He'd changed into a pair of blue bottoms and a shirt that said _My life's in your hands; hand over the cake. _That's when I knew that it was Cole's shirt he was wearing; of course he'd never fit into Jay's or Zane's clothing. They were much smaller than he and Cole were. I tried not to stare at the watery mane of long black hair, or the bright golden eyes, rummaging through my dresser for my own somethings to put on and be comfortable in. Distantly, I wondered if Seiko had something to wear, until I realized that she was probably wearing something of Danielle's, though whatever it was she was probably swallowed whole in. Danielle was a helluva lot bigger than she was. At the thought of her name my muscles tightened and my fists clenched. It was kind of a bad idea to be thinking Danielle's name right now because the thought of it pissed me off. I wanted to stay rational, calm, because if I got out of hand…the Other Side of me could take over.

Kai clasped his hands behind his head, smiling. I saw a small ray of light flicker in his eyes. "That's too bad, man. You look really good in a purple towel."

This kind of banter I'd grown accustomed to; the boys always used to do it back on the _Destiny's Bounty. _All of them, really, except Jay. Every once and a while, he'd throw something out when Nya wasn't in the room. I would've done the same. It had taken me a little while to get into the swing of things because as a ten year old, they hadn't expressed such teenager-y comments around me. As an older person, it showed me what guys my age joked about aside from the usual stuff. It made me a little freaked out, but I was pretty cool about it. It had been a long time since I'd been able to joke with a friend.

"Oh, well," I teased, grabbing sweats. "Lucky for you, there are three other unsuspecting victims down the hallway. You could always go rape them and let me sleep in my bed." I eyeballed the comforter. Kai gave a small laugh, almost humorless.

"I really don't think that would be appropriate," he chuckled. The jokes were gone after that. I was pretty sure Kai was going to say something serious, which I wasn't in the mood to hear; I just wanted to sleep. I gave him a warning glance

"Close your eyes," I said, and dropped the towel after he did.

I tugged on my pants, snapping my fingers for Kai to open his eyes again. He looked upset. Which was my ultimate warning sign of the conversation I knew would be coming. "Lloyd…"

"Kai, I'm tired," I begged, "just let me sleep. We can talk in the morning."

I shoved my drawer shut with my hip, untangling the T-shirt to slip over my chest. Kai's face looked withdrawn, depressed, all earlier signs of our laughter gone. His black hair fell over his face, and once again I was stunned by the sight of him without the spikes and the notched eyebrow. Those were the parts of Kai's trademark appearance. It would take a while to switch what I recognized as him in my brain into what he was now. Running my hands over my wet hair, I waved my hand for him to move his ass out of my bed, but all he did was scoot over. I rolled my eyes. "_All _the way, dude," I said. Kai's face still looked like it was bathed in regret. I hated to see the look on his face. "Come on. Stop it with the Bambi eyes. I'm serious. I don't want to talk about this right now."

"I can't let you lose yourself," Kai whispered. His hush was desperate enough to scare me. His whole face had taken on a look of nervousness, of pleading. He reached out his hand and his fingers slowly curled around my wrist. I shivered. "I saw what you became down there. That was…that wasn't you."

"No."

"God, Lloyd, you looked like a demon. It scared the hell out of me to see you like that." Hovering awkwardly at the side of my bed with his hand wrapped around my wrist, I looked away, my eyes finding the shelf where I kept a lot of nonsensical items, like shells and snow globes. I looked at the stupid, googly eyed rock that Jay had given me as a thank-you for killing the Overlord. It stared back at me, dumb and unknowing. "You looked out for blood. I got so scared for you. I mean, geezus, you would've demolished Cole if he was human."

"Good thing he's not," I murmured, and sighed. "I know. It was awful of me to do, and—"

"I just don't want you to get hurt," Kai said unevenly. His ragged tone made me look into his golden eyes, where worry swirled uncontrollably. His comment surprised me. I wasn't expecting _that _as a response, but it was understandable. His Adam's apple bobbed, a sheen of shine glowing under his eyes. I frowned at his nervousness. "I couldn't live with myself if you got hurt because of that venom."

I didn't know what to say to that. Kai couldn't live with himself if I got hurt? What sense did that make? I felt him slowly try to tug me down beside him, but I wasn't ready for that. I pried my hand out of his to drag it down my face. "Kai, honestly, I—"

"I know, you're tired," Kai said softly. The squeak of bed springs responded as he sat up. He didn't look like he'd resolved anything, but he wasn't going to stall any longer. My bed was soon unoccupied after he swung his legs over the side. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to dive into it and fall asleep right there. I turned to look at him, standing behind me with an uneasy stifle to his expression. "I just want you to know that I _won't _let it consume you. I don't care what I have to do, Lloyd; I will _always _protect you. Even if it's from yourself."

I opened my mouth, but before I could even blink, he pulled me closer to him. I got uncomfortable instantly. _What's he—? _Kai's lips pressed against my cheekbone, and I froze. Okay. No. That was…weird. My cheeks flamed, and I didn't know how to look him in the eye. It turned out that I didn't have to. He disappeared out the door quicker than he'd come; it shut softly behind him with an empty _click. _

Where his mouth had touched, a ray of heat burned. Kai had always been weird, but that was just a good weird; I didn't quite get the whole point of kissing my face. I scrubbed the spot where his lips had brushed. _Knock it off, _I told my heart, which rolled uncomfortably in uneven beats. No. Just no.

The bathroom light was still on. I'd intended to go back in there before I'd noticed my friend lying on my bed. My friend…who had just kissed my face. I was still reeling from the whole experience. Why did he do that? He didn't strike me as the kind of guy who…liked…his cohorts. Or was I just reading too much into it? Was he playing on the earlier joke we'd had?

Why had Kai looked so crazed, so afraid? Something was wrong. I could've kicked myself as I moved towards the bathroom. Why didn't I ask him what was wrong? _Ugggghhh. _I was such an idiot when I was tired. I reached for the light switch next to the mirror with a grimace on my face. My eyes barely scanned the surface of my reflection, until I noticed something strange. It took me a moment to process it, but it was there, all right. I leaned forward to squint at my cheekbone where Kai had kissed. Was that seriously what I thought it was?

God, it…it looked like Seiko's. There was no mistaking it; the ever-rising birthmark appearing on my skin was a curved tear, just like Seiko's, only pointing downwards and aimed in the opposite direction. I touched it again. I'd never had that before! Where did it come from? I recognized the symbol immediately, giving a small, tiny gasp in its wake. Wow. Okay. I was _not _expecting _that…_ What Kai had bestowed on my cheek with the light brush of his mouth was none other than the perfect curl of a Yang.

* * *

**Reader **of the week: **CayaKat! **Thank you for being so dedicated and kind!

**Burning Fan Question **of the day/night: **What will Lloyd, Kai, or Seiko dream about? **(I know...kinda lame. Thank Emiko for that one. XD)

**Please **review, and **go have an AWWEESOME day/night!**


	21. Chapter 21

**EdgeChronicles01: **Your entry wasa really good idea! Would you mind if I used it?! XD

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**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:  
**A Broken Powerbox and a Clogged Windpipe

Cole set down the heavy-weighted bench-press weight, laying beneath it in a heap of exhausted warmth and sweat. Man, did it feel good to just lay there and not have to worry about Moustache-Man demanding for him to dance, or Ed-nah forcing him to rewrite the meaning of vowels, consonants, and the sorry saps in between. It felt good. Peaceful. Easy.

Any normal person would've been content with just being able to lie down, work out, shower, and BE without the burden of learning stuff lying over his head, looming like a deadly snake about to strike. But to Cole, it made him feel weak.

He slid out from beneath the bar, sitting up, gazing around him at the empty room before him. The basement was dark, dreary, and made of mostly cement and junk. The house was held up by two pillars that Cole was stuck between. The floor and walls were made of graying adhesive, which admittedly was also tainted with water stains and therefore unattractive. The corner was consumed by boxes and boxes of crap that he didn't want to go through. Sitting up, the basement chill felt nice on his sweaty skin, but he had a sour feeling in the back of his throat. He had a strange feeling that he should be…_mourning _something. Feeling sad about some certain incident. But…he didn't know what to be sad about.

Cole grabbed the white rag on the floor beside his shirt, patting down his face. His breath was ragged. "Lord," he mumbled, and stood. His arms burned. It felt great.

The staircase creaked under his weight. After flicking off the light switch at the top of the steps, bathing the basement in darkness once again, he shuffled down the hallway, the dim lighting adjusting his eyes to its smoky attire. Everyone was still sleeping. He didn't blame them; it was early in the morning. He pushed open the bathroom door, into the rush of the florescent lights. He stared at his reflection in the mirror. Instantaneous shadows hovered over his face. He'd lifted those weights for two hours. Why didn't he feel accomplished?

And why did he feel like he was missing something?

Cole stepped into the shower moments later. The hot water was refreshing, but not filling. He felt clean as he walked down the hall to his bedroom, wearing a single white towel across his lower half, dangling low on his hips. It felt like the ugly sheen had been scrubbed off his skin. It was an amazing feel.

The bedroom was still inhabited by the other two that the adults shoved him in with. Cole slept on the air mattress across the floor, since his sleeping régime wasn't the same as everyone else's, while Jay and Zane stole the bunk bed. Both of them were fast asleep as Cole moved into the darkness. He could easily see everything clearly without the need of light, even if the sun was starting to peek through the dark curtains. Still, that feeling that he was supposed to be doing something else tugged at his skin. What was it that was making him feel so…what was the word… it was like walking into the kitchen but forgetting what you'd gone in there for. He knew he was supposed to be here, but he was supposed to be _doing _something. What, exactly, should he be doing?

There was a trunk of his clothes that Moustache Man had brought for him sitting at the end of the bunk bed. As Cole dug through the assortment, he had a flash of something. Someone. He felt like he was supposed to stand up, and when he did face someone in the eye, but…but who? The image vanished as quickly as it had come. Tilting back his head now, he saw no one.

_What a weird feeling, _he thought. He found a pair of jeans and a gray sweater. Then, it hit him.

Whoa. Déjà vu.

Cole stood up, feeling like he had done this before. He had done this _exact same thing before…_but where? When? Why? How? He wracked his brain for the answer, but never remembered any moment like this. He looked down at the clothes he'd grabbed. He was just being stupid. There was nothing to remember about—

_A voice. _A voice in his head. Distant, an echo, a resonant of something that once was that had come to never be. Cole almost jumped.

_Sorry I'm laying in your bed._

The voice sounded so familiar, he could've blown up. That voice. The face. It was on the tip of his tongue. Searching for a trigger, Cole looked down at the clothes again, and on a whim, slowly began to untangle his pants.

_Hey, squirt. _

Cole's fingers flexed at the sound of his own voice echoing in his head. It was much, much deeper than a self-talk. It was a _memory. _His heart jumped. Cole could feel it, teasing him in the very back of his mind. It was there, all right. He stood straighter and, thinking deeply, dropped his towel into the darkness.

Then he saw a face. The flash of it, almost nonexistent, a spark that died quickly within the flame. The round, childish face peering down at him was accustomed enough to—

_Although he was fully grown now, sometimes Cole would catch a glimpse of an angle of Lloyd's face and see the familiar child inside him, hidden deep beneath the surface. He experienced that just now._

Cole jerked backwards, stumbling into the black. His mind swirled with the memory. The full image—the talk about Zane's panic attack, the angst over a burned cake, and Lloyd's pale, pale face of sickness—washed over him with such intensity that he couldn't breathe. Lloyd…Lloyd Garmadon. The guy who had tried to kill him last night. Though he felt angry about it, he also had a fleeting feeling that the _real _Lloyd would never hurt him like that. Something was wrong with Lloyd. A-and Zane. Zane had a panic attack? In his current memories, that seemed bizarre. But something was boiling deep within his thoughts. More memories. Something…something about…Kai's voice, saying something…

_You basically just said something got caught in your powerbox and now your windpipe is full of dirt?_

_Is that how you see it?_

Cole's heart wouldn't stop thundering. Was he getting his memory back? The vision of Jay, wielding a wrench, drilling it into Zane's chest—a _panel. _Zane had a panel. No, he didn't. His chest now was—was bare of any kind of hole. Cole rammed the heels of his hands into his eyes. The memories he had now and the ones he was experiencing were beginning to clash.

Could it mean that his memories that he had now weren't real? Because if anything felt real, it was the ones he was remembering.

He heard the swift voice in his head, dark, deep, and scratchy. _Your memories, _said the voice that didn't belong to him. Cole jumped and looked blindly in the screened darkness, but there was no one. _They are _mine_. You cannot have them back. _

The creak of a floorboard behind him made him whirl. The dark outline of a small form against the light of the doorway made him freeze. It took his eyes a moment to adjust, but there wasn't any mistaking the figure of a gun, clenched tightly between the girl's hands. Cole's eyes widened. He felt dirty, ugly memory seep into his brain, images of true despise, and with a loud gasp, he glimmered in disgust, "Y-_you!" _

The girl held the gun with her arms fully extended. Her blank face was not to be mistaken. "You weren't supposed to remember that," she said flatly, and her finger closed in on the trigger.

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**-.- Dawn of the Nindroids **has been updated!

**No new announcements. **

**Please **review, and **go have **an AWESOME day/night!


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N PLZ READ!**

NFAN HAS ITS OWN YOUTUBE PAGE! GAAAHHHHH! ^-^ Emiko has been hard at work creating it, and last night she put up a couple of the **unofficial score **pieces- I encourage you to go check it out! You can find it underneath **KairiVenomus, **searching Nightmares for a Ninja or simply my username- I am not that hard to find! Please go check it out! There will be many more amazing things we'll post on there to come!

* * *

**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:  
**Catch Me If You Can  
_~Yin~_

I thought of the gunshot way before I actually heard it. With welcoming darkness enveloping me, I cradled myself deeper into the wonderful cocoon of the purple quilt, my face nuzzled beneath the flush pillows against my head. My mind was wrapped in dreamless, empty black images, unattainable from where they came from, yet somehow I kept interpreting them into words. In my recollection, the day that Kai—er, not the one I'd met yesterday—had snatched me from Sunnyside was what I couldn't erase from my head. I couldn't stop the reiterated assault from my own brother replaying over and over in my head, nor the honest last words I'd ever said to him, really, which came in the fault of how I'd acted towards him on our last phone call. God. That Last Phone Call, the Last Connection I Would Ever Have With My Brother Before He Tried To Kill Me. What an awful way to disappear, wasn't it? Was I really so miserable that I had to scream at my brother, demand answers of him, shout at him of his lies out of anger that I was forever destined to life in a locked, sterile room?

Or was I really that insane?

I couldn't stop imagining how Cole had immediately stood up for freakin' Kiko when I tried to kill her. Did he not remember how much he hated her? Did he not remember what she'd done to me? I had every right to attacking her, to attempting battering her senseless, as any victim of that stupid vampire's wrath did. Did he really forget the most mortifying part of his life? Did he forget…_everything, _including me?

The Cole I had known never would've tried to kill me. I'd seen not even a flash of recognition in his eyes, nor across his tan face, nor in the shape of his brow. There was nothing remaining of my brother in the vampire who'd taken over; before he'd ever been ruined by—whatever had ruined him, Cole had tried to ignore that I had existed, that I was part of his life. He shunned the world he grew up in, pushing aside dancing and Lou and Mom and his unpredictable past and _me. _Now, he'd gotten what he'd wanted: to forget those things completely. Were we really so embarrassing to him that even remotely considering what he'd channeled by was completely painful?

He stared at me through the haze and darkness, a face I had always welcomed as comfort in the middle of a brokenhearted, bitter twist of emotions. Now it was nothing but Grand Central Station for heartache and abandonment. How to deal with what came but only ever grew, never subsiding, always dancing peer on the edge of my heart-rest. I matched my own assumptions with a twist and groan onto my back. The anticipation of waiting—of wanting to know if really, Cole didn't know me at all—was killing me. Have I ever mentioned I _suck _at waiting? And while we're on the subject of things I suck at, apparently it's controlling my, erm, _powers. _Void, I mean. I'd freakin' knocked Lloyd off his feet earlier tonight, slapping that sucker right through the glass and against the counter. And there's a massive size difference between us. I'm practically _half _that guy's size, yet somehow, I'd totally whacked him like he was a bug. Something was part of me—something big enough to do unto Lloyd as had been done unto myself—and I had no clue how to control it.

I didn't want to ask Lloyd for help, but he was the only one I really knew. Well, maybe I could _sort of_ count for the old woman who'd shuffled me to bed last night. Misako, his mother, of all people. It was awkward, but…at the same time, I already felt an affectionate gleam towards me by her own large heart. I had been underprivileged of my own motherly support for the majority of my lifetime, and to have someone as warm as her come in and, without even _knowing _me, knowing of the things I'd done, patting me down into a warm cot in the corner of a small room housing a separate bunk bed. She'd brushed my hair behind my ear, moving my bangs completely, and had given me a tender smile. "Sweet dreams, Seiko. I'll see you in the morning." Then, without prompt, she'd bent down and given me a tender kiss across the cheek, right on my birthmark. It had left me stunned that someone who didn't even know me was being, well, _kind. _Without another word, Misako had retreated out the doorway, leaving me in the darkness by myself.

I'd fallen asleep almost immediately, only to wake up an hour later to the sound of the door opening softly. I had a hard time prying open my eyes, but through the slit of my lids, I found the Golden Girl haloed by the dim light in the hallway. She'd slipped inside with a candlestick in her hand, lit gently and smoking a small portion, her face cast in a shadow dance that made her look grim and empty, as her expression normally was. She held the candlestick completely in her grasp, like without the holder or _anything, _letting the hot wax drip across her fingers like she was immune to the pain. I'd watched, blown away by how literally stupid she had to be to want to hold that hot thing. She'd softly closed the door and, ignoring the little clump lying in the bottom bunk that I'd never met face-to-face, climbed up towards the top bunk with her free hand. When she'd gotten there, she'd just laid down, blown out the candle, and all was silent.

I couldn't stand lying in here anymore, thinking about nothing that mattered. It was early, and I was so accustomed to Sunnyside's early mornings that tradition took over. I kicked off the covers, my anxiety of daylight becoming me. _I'll just look, _I thought, remembering Cole's awful exercising schedule, and wondered if I would find him awake. It was difficult to imagine that my own brother didn't remember me at all. No one just _forgot. _Memories didn't just disappear. They were there, somewhere—and I'd do what I could to make him remember me. There had to be a way to revive him, to bring back the Cole Mitsuhide that _I _had known into my world. Sparkles couldn't just be _gone, _and that's what blew me away. You couldn't do it.

I tiptoed across the dark birchwood, my feet climbing their way across the worn out floor towards the door. I quietly pried it open, as not to wake Sleeping Beauty and the Golden Girl. The living room I exited into was quiet, but my feet made soft noises against the carpet, a sort of scruffing that ultimately disrupted the peace. I scampered my small body in a whoosh of intense speed towards the staircase—grabbing onto the wall at the last second as I realized the floors had been recently polished. I took one moment to look backwards into the hall behind me. The front door allowed rising sunlight to bleed into the entryway, which could be considered dangerous if someone were to see me up so early. Persistent, I took the moment to scamper up the staircase using the same speed that almost made me crash into the kitchen door. The old wood made soft groans that lasted a nanosecond underneath my footing, not enough to make a large enough announcement that I was totally standing on the stairs. The top floor's hallway was long and wide, and I had a sinking feeling that I'd find the wrong room before I ever found Cole's—but determination had always been my strongest trait. In a glimmer of momentary confidence, I started forward into the dark hall with my fingers crossed that my better intuition would save my life.

And then there was the gunshot.

I jumped, actually. It scared the _crap _out of me. It had come from only a few feet ahead of me, in the haze that was absolutely impenetrable—but there was someone there, my senses told me. Someone was in the hallway with me.

The footsteps started running towards me.

_Oh, God. _My heart thundered in my chest as whoever it was made loud thunders of their boots against the floor, instantly alerting everyone that there was obviously an escapee trying to commit to their name. I instantly prepared myself for something, still reeling from the gunshot—who had gotten hurt?!

A hand closed around my throat, clammy, wet, and cold. My voice was cut off from the previous scream, where I looked into the darkness at a pale face and red hair—someone who I thought I recognized through this sheen of sheer shadows. She clamped her fingers hard against my throat and held another finger to her lips. _"Shhhhhh…." _She hissed at me, her eyes sparkling. My heart thundered.

I wrestled. Flailing my legs and digging my nails into her skin, I aimed straight for her stomach, but she had a height over me. The shooter yanked on my hair tightly at the same moment that one of the doors to the hallway opened. Her finger squeezed harder against my trachea, and I coughed loudly as she shoved me harder against the wall. The hit of it made a loud _thump. _My lungs began to burn when I couldn't breathe in, my chest constricting as it realized there was no chance it was going to get any air. It was difficult to command myself to fight back, but even so, I swung out my arm just in time for the hallway light to flick on and everyone to pour out of their rooms at the same. At the sound of the gunshot, motion had caused everyone to wake, and I heard screams.

My vision was blurring. The girl smiled wickedly at me, but said nothing. "_Hey_!" I heard somebody shout, the voice sounding strangely like Snickerdoodles. But I didn't have time to care. The girl's grip clenched reflexively against my throat, and with the blur of my eyes and the slowing of my heart, the inability to kick against her and battle the way I wanted to, she took advantage of me. She pushed me back towards the staircase. My legs tangled around hers limply. I tried, with my head and chest pounding, to knock my elbow against her head. The girl deflected it and grinned wickedly at me. "Bye bye," she snarled in my face, and let me go.

Unfortunately for her, I wrapped my legs around hers at the very second I hit the staircase. My elbows knocked hard against the wood, stinging painfully. In a flurry, I used my elbows as props and hauled her downwards with a yank of my own legs. And boy, she wasn't expecting that kind of counterattack. I flipped her over the top of me completely, in a pretty cool move that I think needed some marveling later on. She gave a girly scream as she began to fall downwards with me, only I had grabbed onto the railing, using it as a guide as the girl tumbled down worse than Jack and Jill combined, her awkward landing sprouting what I was sure would result in a broken bone _some_where. Clambering to my feet, I looked up to find Snickerdoodles and Kai standing above me, their eyes wide and a little startled. That was fine. Whatever. I tried to move quickly while ignoring the awful heave in my chest. The sting in my elbows was _killing _me. Lloyd reached out a hand for me to take. Messy from sleep and his hair disheveled, cheeks flushed, he looked like a child, aquamarine and beautiful in his own small way. I grabbed onto his hand. You do _not _know how good it felt to have that strange, reassuring heat flood through me. My heart thundered with adrenaline. I gave him a grin to cover for what had totally just happened. "Thanks, Snicker—"

I felt the crack against my back, then the sudden twirl of something wrapping me in its vise-like grip wind around my waist. I looked down to see the tail of the black whip winding around my hips; a scream of horror sounded from beyond Kai and Lloyd. They both reached out towards me with small cries of noise, but the wielder of the whip—no doubt that chick from the bottom of the steps—yanked, _hard. _Like having the breath knocked right out of you, the tighten of the whip pushed against my stomach, forcing all the air out of me at once. I was yanked backwards. With a grunting-screamy-groan thing that didn't sound attractive at all, the air sailed around me. The whip was used as a rope, jerking me backwards roughly. Lloyd and Kai suddenly became quite small as I was pulled down the staircase. "Not today!" yelled the girl's voice. "You're coming with _me." _

I hit the base of the stairs in a painful landing. My tailbone cracked hard against the wooden floors, and I silently cursed Misako for not having carpet for at least _some _kind of cush. The influence it had on my brain sailed a shot of sharp pain up my back, numbing my senses instantly. I gave a gasping cry into the air. The girl reached down, being mean and violent as suspected, and grabbed a fistful of my hair. "Come on!" She cackled, and pulled me up to height. My knees didn't dare sustain my weight, and I dropped under shaky circumstances. It hurt too much to stand on my own two legs. It felt like I certainly _had _broken something, although what, I wasn't sure. Lloyd and Kai pounded down the steps, their feet making reverberating noises against the enclosed area. Lloyd reached out his hand towards me, but it was a little late for that. With the whip tight in her hands, the girl took off towards the front door. She kicked it down with her bare foot—I could hear it. A _second, _literally a freaking _second _before Lloyd grabbed my hand, his eyes wide, the girl tugged crudely on the rope, and I was thrown backwards once more.

This time, I crashed against the porch. My side hit it this time. The scream I let out was a little less manly, but nonetheless pained, a cry for help in between gasps. Yeah. I had to have broken something. And what about the ste—?

The girl's whip had to be a mile long, 'cause she was way ahead of me. She'd already descended the steps minutes before I went tumbling down them, smacking multiple ribs and other various body parts on the six of them. My pain was worse now, and this was leading Kai and Lloyd in a deadly goose chase after us. What kind of sick joke was this, anyway? Who was this chick, and what did she want with _me?! _

Had someone found out about Void?

The thought was silly, but not at all impossible. Dragged across the dirt in the grass, I turned my head backwards to realize that she was running for the woods. Oh, _hell _naw. I was _not _going through those woods. I looked down at the rope, the constrictions dragging across the imperfections of the earth beneath us. I was definitely getting grass stains on the borrowed white t-shirt. I'd have to say sorry to Misako once this was over—_if _I made it out alive. My fingers wrapped around the first coil they touched, and with what strength I had left, I pulled, but the effort was soon lost to a terrible agony shooting through my arm towards my shoulder. I gritted my teeth and tried for it again. The end of the coil stuck tight against me, which I swore got tighter every time I pulled. My breath only came in small little tweaks. I looked backwards to find that Lloyd and Kai were miles behind this exceedingly fast running lady who randomly appeared, shot guns, and owned a whip. _I bet she'd be good at track, _I thought, and reached backwards—despite the agony in my ribs—to grab onto the length of the whip behind me. I pulled, which really only pulled me upwards more. The woods neared closer. In a wave of desperation, I pulled again, feeling the coils loosen just a fraction of an inch. My arms shook with strain. This _had _to be done. I tightened my sweaty grip on the leathery material, clenching my teeth together to ignore the pain. I yanked harder. If I could pull enough, I could get the coils to loosen, and possibly could wiggle my way out of them. No matter how I pulled, though, it seemed like there was nothing I could do; with a groan of anger, I drew against the whip once more, using every bit of my strength, even trying to push my bare feet against the dragging grass underneath my skin. It was still cool with dew. The sky overhead was just beginning to turn pink. And I was still trying to fight for my life.

A flash of lightning cracked into the trees over my head. I screamed, more or less because I wasn't expecting it at all, but knew Lloyd was the culprit. My body was dragged over a lumpy patch of dirt, forcing a shriek out of me. It was cut off when I hit something else that wasn't very light to the touch. I couldn't pull anymore, so instead moved to work back on the coils—and found something better.

There was the sudden burst of orange shooting past me. I looked up, startled, as it flew by. It didn't look like any elemental attack I'd ever seen, until I realized that it _wasn't. _Vampire speed able to carry her faster past my kidnapper than they could anticipate, Maya launched herself into the air, after which I could no longer see her. _Maya. _Saving _me. _Who had, honestly, tried to kill her last night. What the hell? Had I woken up in the Twilight Zone? Why would she want to save _me? _Instead, I heard the startled gasp of whoever had stolen me turn into an angry cry. I continued to skid against the grass, but my speed was slowing. My attacker had _stopped! _

"Hello, Caroline," said Maya, and I heard that squishing/cracking noise that usually came with the explosion of vampire transitions. It was the veins starting to appear underneath her eyes and the lengthening of her fangs. "Goodbye, Caroline."

The grass underneath me drug me quickly into the tumble of a hill. _Wonderfuk, _I thought, using my specialized word to sharpen my scream as I started going over the side of the enormous lump in the ground. It did absolutely _nothing _for my aching wounds. I gave a cry as I uselessly flailed over the side, unable to unwind the growing whip from around my body in time. The hill was long, and a little too tedious for Mother Nature to be dissing out. I was going to petition to her cause. With my limbs rolling completely around me like a stupid rag doll getting chucked around, the various parts of my body smacked against the ground when I rolled, and pretending to be a ball wasn't amusing NOR funny. Above me, around the thunder of my rolling game in my ears, I heard an angry roar come from Snickerdoodles, followed by a really loud shake of the earth. As if to purposely make matters worse, I hit a bump that sent me flying into the air.

_I believe I can fly…_

Yeah. No.

Not today.

I screamed as I came down, although when I expected to hit the ground, I had a much better outcome. The duck and wind of sudden arms came around me, catching me like I was some stupid little kid. The jolt of it made me gasp aloud. Instinctively, I was going to slap the sucker who laid a fricking hand on me, until I realized that moving my arm in such a slappy motion would not do well. My limbs dangled uselessly, and the strong arms underneath my legs and neck lifted me up. I was for certain gonna smack Snickerdoodles a good one when I was fully recov—

"Wait a second," I croaked. "You're not Snickerdoodles."

"Not really," murmured the boy Misako had called "Zane," his cheeks turning red. I stared up into his poison icy blue eyes. I had automatically assumed that it was Snickers 'cause, well, he's _always _saving me, and plus, it was Snickers and Kai that had been following me in the first place. Had I missed something?

"Where did _you _come from?" I asked, trying to wiggle out of his intense grasp. For a feminine guy, he really did have an iron grip. I moved my back upwards to haul myself out of this really weird situation. A lightning fast shock of pain jolted through my side, and I gasped like there was no air left. Zane looked down at me, eyes empathetic.

"Don't move, I shall carry you," he said almost monotonically. He looked down at the coils around my stomach, and winced. "Hold on," he promised, and started to move backwards, towards the back of the house rather than towards the front. Is that where he'd come from? My body fell against his, and I could hear a heartbeat underneath his chest: steady, true, real, and warm. My whole body either ached or stung. I didn't get it—what had even just happened? What did that chick want with me? And why the heck did Maya save _me? _

Zane tapped the side of my head sympathetically. "I apologize for this unfortunate event," he said, and I opened my mouth to speak, but found under his touch that I was growing more tired by the second. "Please, do sleep now; it is better that you rest."

"_Mmmgffhhh," _I had time to mumble, before my head fell back over my shoulders and the world went completely black.

…

Kai shoved the worst of his flame into Caroline's ankles, welding them together with the melting metal. She shrieked in pain. "I could've _sworn _I ripped your head off," Maya snarled, and stepped down hard to Caroline's jaw with her heel, shutting off the scream. Lloyd's stick pressed against her panel.

Someone had revived Caroline from her death. He wasn't surprised, since every villain they'd faced had miraculously reappeared into existence. Kai was about to consider Eloquim to be the suspect when he realized the creature was dead; that was when he noted the strange absences of Julien _and _Rikku. He hadn't seen the latter since last night, and he hadn't seen the former since the hospital a month ago. He made a mental note to ask someone where each of them were. Julien wouldn't…revive Caroline, would he? But she _was _his daughter; could it be father's guilt that brought her back? And where was Rikku? He pulled away his hands to admire his handiwork.

"She won't be able to move," he said, and threw a frightened glance towards the hill, where he'd last seen Seiko. "Lloyd…" He began, but the Green Ninja barely glanced over his shoulder. His red eyes pulsed with angry fury, and his lip curled, staring down at Caroline as if all he could see was her death. His hatred, mixed with everyone else's, was almost too consuming. Caroline shrieked.

Maya looked at him over her screams, shoving her heel deeper into the robot's throat to cut off the noise. "Zane took her," Maya stated. "I saw him catch her, then take her to the back of the house."

"Zane…?" Kai repeated, dubious. "Where did Zane come from?"

Maya cocked an eyebrow. "Back door," she responded, and shoved her heel further into what Kai knew had to be painful torture.

Then, the sound of the front door swinging open made even Lloyd turn his head. It was Jay and Zane, rushing out of the house with their faces slick with tears and arms waving above their heads. Kai stood up immediately as Caroline flopped uselessly on the ground. Their eyes were red with crying. "Guys?" he asked, worried. He stepped forward to meet them halfway.

Jay shook his head, looking forlorn. "…It's Cole," he choked. Kai's heart leaped into his throat. It caught the attention of both Maya _and _Lloyd, both of them turning around quickly to face the messenger.

"What happened?!" Maya demanded. Her eyes were hard, but Kai could see the worry over her expression.

Jay bent his head, sobs beginning to wrack his body. Zane looked at him, white as a sheet, paler than he normally was. Kai reached forward to pull Jay closer while looking deeply at Zane, ignoring Maya's lousy comments, and asked, "What happened, Zane?" in the softest tone he could manage in such a stressful time.

Zane, too, almost made for ducking his head. "S-someone….sh-shot him in the head," he whispered, too faint to speak louder. "Right through the middle of his forehead. And now…he's not _moving._"

…

Maya leaped forward, pouncing on Zane with all her weight. She almost threw him over, or would've if she hadn't stopped herself from hitting him. She grabbed onto his shoulders and snarled into his face, trying to believe it _wasn't true. _Oh, that Caroline bitch would _get it _if the little kid was being honest. She had to get in there, help him out—Oh, she shouldn't be _caring _about such a dumb thing, but she had to ask—"What did you do with the girl?" She asked, pointing towards the ravine.

In his sorrow, Zane looked confused. "Girl?" he repeated. "What girl?"

"You know! _S-Seiko," _Maya managed. She hated that name more than she hated anything else. "What did you do with her?"

"I-I don't know what you're talking about."

"ZANE this is no time for jokes! What did you do with Seiko?!" Maya shook him. Zane 's eyes widened.

"Nothing! I have not touched her!" He yelped.

"Yes you did! I saw you walk down there, pick her up, and walk behind the house! Don't you lie to me!" Growing more hysterical by the second, her voice rose many, many octaves.

"I am not lying! I didn't touch her!" Zane wrenched his body out of Maya's rough grasp, looking like a kicked puppy would. "I promise! I can't lie! That's too mean! I didn't touch Seiko!"

* * *

**Please review, and go have an awesome day/night!**


	23. Chapter 23

**CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:  
**Oblivion

She weighed nothing, but the force of her power made her seem as though she was heavier than she actually was.

This must've been what Kaos kept talking about when he said that she was far greater than she would ever live up to. Ash wasn't completely comprehensive of exactly _why _she was so important, other than the fact that her power was the target of Kaos' attention. She was pretty much half his size and, really, didn't look that much; her hair fell away from her face as her chin tilted away, leaving her throat bare and exposed. He was surprised that her skin was the color of forbidden snow in the dead of winter, her mouth redder than blood, and her hair blacker than midnight itself. Her eyes were that shade of blue that you would expect to see deep, deep under the ocean's surface, where the sun just barely touched. Limp as a ragdoll in his arms, the girl that Caroline had insisted she drag across the troubled earth was wrapped in a whip was still curled inside of it. The remains drug across the sulking dry leaves, bearing the autumn as it whispered hello. He endured under cover by the dying trees around him. Their last breaths swept his hair into his eyes and his face into a characteristic pinch. Naturally, he was as bitter as the new breath of unchanging tides; this part of the continent seemed to always be stuck inside of fall, always forced to relive the same moment overwhelmingly, time and time again. It wouldn't be, however, once the girl was delivered to Kaos. Ash's mind fluttered back to the reminder of what they'd done last night to Ignacia, wondering if the Ninja had heard news of the destruction yet. The hole in the ground that had sucked the place completely up no longer drank, for it needed to be fed by another magical potion, but it was a never ending pit, a bottomless hole in the ground that matched the exact depth of the one inside of Ninjago City Museum. Ash wanted to triumphantly smirk at the accomplishment, but he was held back. Although Ignacia was gone—every last piece of it: Four Weapons, the fields, all of the carnival, _gone_—and his first task—of the seven he had—was completed, he didn't know whether it was well to celebrate victory just yet. Surely, in the future, there would be trouble with the Ninja that Ash and his friends mocked with their appearance only.

The road just beyond the wood made itself visible through the curtain of dead trees. His destination. The cobbled roads that led way into the nearest town (the Fireman's Circle, a place captured in time) by their own reddened brick bred their own brand of darkness. What other dangerous things had crawled across this very road, doing dirty work as Ash was?

He met the van without expression. He didn't come programmed with many, after all. His feet moved him onto the cobbles at the exact same time that the driver's door opened, a loud sound in the empty thicket. Fang stepped out with his expression hidden underneath the thrush of coal black hair. His expression was guarded. The lope he made dressed beneath denim and leather made the stereotype "Bad Boy" fit him to perfection, almost as well as his T-shirt did over his broad chest. After kicking the door shut with a high-top, Fang's eyes lay concealed underneath the slick aviators while scanning the area. The only warning Ash had of the action was the turn of his neck, popping his jugular visible. Fang grimaced before finally turning back to him, and shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Something happened to Jace," he announced. Ash cocked an eyebrow and shifted his grip on the feeble little girl raveled awkwardly in his arms. It seemed unlikely that anything would happen to Jace Bennett, but Ash wasn't above denying it.

"How so?" he asked. Fang slipped around towards the back of the van. No windows but the passenger's, driver's, and windshield came with it, useful when smuggling powerful girls from the eyes of Ninja.

High-tops scraping painfully across the cobble, Fang pulled one hand from his pockets to pop a door, then shouldering the other open. "He didn't appear here with us after we swallowed the potion," he said. Ash had noticed this, but figured that Jace hadn't been thinking of his destination when he'd absorbed it. He moved the whip's tail out of his way (it was dangling on the ground) so he could find the right angle to deposit the girl with. The back of the van was completely cleared of the old seats that had once been there. She fit comfortably into the reign, and Ash, deciding not to struggle with the knots of the whip for now, bent down on his knees to pick it up.

"I don't think it means that something happened to him," Ash stated. He then proceeded to tell Fang what he thought had happened. Fang's expression grew weary until the end of the hypothesis, for which he shook his head to.

"No, Ash, I'm serious. He would've called or something, and…I don't…" Fang shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck. He tilted his head towards the sun. Ash noticed that Fang's tanned skin sucked in the rays as golden sustenance, bringing him more color by the dose. Ash reached out and patted his shoulder.

"At least," he said softly, "if much happened to him, and he experienced fatality, we know we will see him again when we return back to headquarters."

Fang sighed. He turned his attention to the girl, knowing that Ash was right. It was what normally happened when they lost one of the four of them in some accident, issue, or battle otherwise. The second they stepped through the main gates of Headquarters, they came face to face (more or less) with the friend they'd lost, who looked, spoke, sounded, breathed, and etcetera exactly as the one that had died. It took a while to become accustomed to the reproduction, but Ash was better to accept it now. More than once, it was Kayus who died, usually by his carelessness and irrationality. Every time, the new Kayus that they faced would behave exactly as the previous. It was strange, but acceptable.

Fang's face gave nothing of his thoughts. "_That's _who Kaos is so intent to get?" he asked, stunned. His lip curled in disgust. "Are you sure you got the right one? She looks so…_worthless." _

Ash would've shrugged. He looked to the girl's enlarged shirt over her blue-and-green striped shorts. She did not appear most professional, nor experienced. "It's who Caroline brought me, and that's all that needs to be said. If this is the wrong suspect, then _she _can get reprimanded. I'm not taking the blame."

"I wouldn't, either. She's irritating and deserves to be kicked in the teeth." Fang's hands closed around each door, his arm span taking the view of the small girl, disappearing beneath Fang's form. "What's her name? Or didn't Kaos say?" Fang pointed a long finger towards her. Ash blinked. "She's kinda cute."

"She's Cole's younger sister."

"Lucky for her, I'm not Cole." Fang smiled cockily, and Ash scoffed-laughed at the sight of it. Fang developed himself a tread of lines, drawn by his fingers when reaching forward to skim his fingers over her bare arms. "I could have some serious fun with that." The girl showed no reaction to the touch of Fang's fingertips. He bored himself easily and turned away without another word, shutting the doors in apt order. Ash rubbed his wrists to shimmy off the moment of shivers he caught. They came imperceptibly, like ghosts, doing their dirty work in direction. The collard rub of the picking wind startled the boys' hair. Fang drew his leather jacket closer to his ears by the force of his shoulders. He jammed his fingers into his coat pockets. "It just got pretty cold," Fang observed.

"Indeed." Fang nodded towards the van. Ash picked up on the notion they were getting ready to leave. He scraped over the cobbles towards the passenger door.

_Crack. _

The lightning snapped across the tree behind him. Ash had just enough time to view it creep over his head at windy speeds just before it knocked the branch completely from the trunk. Fang whirled when he did. Good for his benefit, Ash dodged the falling object moments before it hit him, landing few feet away. He looked up in time to see the Green Ninja stepping his way out of the shelter of woods. Kayus had warned them about the kid's excruciating attachment to the things he cared about, and his unwavering determination to defeat those who challenged him. His overprotective manners would more than likely cause more deaths to the group, which Ash interpreted as plenty more abilities to become reborn. The boy's appearance was disheveled, and much to laugh at. Fang snorted into laughter. Sifting up beside Ash in his tops, he crossed his arms over his chest.

It had been a long time since the Green Ninja was last ever seen in Ninjago; Kaos had told Ash that he'd been sentenced to time in Hell. Without him, plenty of destruction had coursed through the veins of this very half of the continent. The boy wasn't wearing much to please the eye (past his sweatpants and tee) and it was difficult for Ash to view him as the destined Green Ninja. Still, the boy stood tall, his shoulder's rolled back, his head tilted, feet planted, and eyes murderous. Ash took his time in processing that the boy's eyes were stained a bloody red, just as his own had come to be. He didn't understand why.

Bursting from the green land behind him sprinkled with dying trees and orange leaves, a new face emerged. This was one Ash had never seen before. His hair was shiny, black, and thin, his body toned to upset, and his features feminine and angelic. His movements weren't fluid like the latter employed them to be. Ash found the golden eyes suave, the black lashes tormented, and his jawline to be raw. He shivered while trying to process how a human could appear himself so…_in_human. The boy moseyed beside the Green Ninja in palpable alliance. They both stared in death glares towards the pair of Bizarro, but Ash viewed the replenishing sight of uncertainty flimsy itself in their unusual painted eyes.

"_You," _spat the Green Ninja, flipping his golden hair out of his eyes. Ash tilted his head like a bird's. Of course they would come after them once they realized that the Bizarro were the ones who had captured their friend, although he hadn't expected them to react so quickly. Tucking his lip underneath his teeth, Ash extended his knowledge to think further. He wanted to prepare for attack. What kind of violence would the four engage in? What attacks could counter that of the Green Ninja's?

"I swear, we killed you," said the black-haired mystery. Ash caught the expected smirk roll over Fang's face. How of this boy knew the Ninja had firstly defeated the Bizarro, Ash didn't comprehend.

"Does anybody ever _really _stay dead?" Fang countered casually. His tone suggested that he was bringing up the weather. "I mean, how many people do you know that have stayed dead, _including _you, little Green Ninja?"

The Green Ninja's face twisted. Ash moved his feet, ready to spring on a moment's notice. "It's a habit of yours, too," disputed the ninja, his aura radiating gold. It made Ash sick. "Everyone we defeat returns. I'm not really surprised you turned up."

"No? Hm." Fang cracked his knuckles. Ash sensed that the trouble would soon begin. "Too bad, it takes the fun out of it. Oh, well, better luck next time, right?"

Then, Fang struck.

His movements were livid. He relocated himself so quickly, Ash's eyes didn't even pick up on it. His stance took up in front of the Green Ninja's. Unfortunately, the Green Ninja prepared himself for the blow, and threw an attack of sheer ice into Fang's chest. Ash's attention veered from that battle in the same moment he was bowled over by the black-haired boy.

His head slammed into the cobbles, redirecting his systems. He felt jarred by the influence of bricks against his manufactured skull. He moved his elbow to jab the boy in the chest; with a yelp, the boy dismantled. Ash rolled to catch his footing. The boy climbed to his feet, and didn't waste time conjuring a massive ball of fire right between his hands. Ash cried out as the ball slammed into his chest; a moment later, the boy slammed his shoulder against the panel, too. _System in need of repair, _a computerized voice crowed in his head. Ash didn't have time to listen. He lifted his leg and swept it underneath the boy.

He jumped up just before the robot's leg hit him; his own feet came upwards in a bicycle kick against Ash's face during the counter. Ash slammed backwards against the van. His back hit with a loud slam that echoed in his ears. If he were human, he would've needed more than the few seconds allotted to steady himself. He shifted positions before the boy's foot could connect with his face again. Another fireball was hurled when Ash scrambled to his feet and threw a connecting swing towards his opponent's throat.

Bad move.

In the spur of great skill, the mysterious man grabbed onto his ankle, twisting it to the side and flipping Ash completely over. His frontal half fell hard against the cobble. _System lethally damaged; engage repairs now, _the flat warning spat. Ash moved to push himself up with his hands braced against the dirty ground. Luckily, he didn't bleed, otherwise the paved brick would be covered with the red fluid. Ash hauled himself up. He whirled—

And got punched in the face.

There was no point to standing up; the man had already pinned him to the ground. His weight pressed killingly down on Ash's own equipment. So much metal and important pieces were damaged, bent inwards, dented. Hitting the cobbles was not empathetic. The man grabbed his hair and scrubbed his face into the dirty ground. Ash felt a tooth come loose.

_"You can kill me all you want!" _shouted Fang's voice from above. Ash's face was shoved deeper into the ground. _"But no matter what you do, I will _always _come back! _I will _never _stay dead!"

"It is true," spat Ash angrily into the dirt. His mouth tasted like metal. "You can do whatever you like to us, but it would never matter. We would just keep coming back until your death became you."

The man scoffed, once. His voice carried. "Yeah, _whatever. _We'll be ready for you, then, punks."

And then the strangest thing happened.

There was a shriek that sounded almost like a girl's, but it didn't belong to one.

Ash's head raised. He observed a black bird, circling in the sky; it was a large creature, it's wingspan elegant to beat against the tide of winds. The caw screamed loud enough to pierce ears to bleed. He didn't quite know why the bird made such a dreadful sound. The scream of the raven turned from hungered shouts to a battle cry ringing of future harbringing. It wailed as it blotted out the sun. Ash had never heard of bird attacks before—getting one from a scavenger such as the raven would be more understandable than being attacked by a chickadee—but the blood it craved needed come soon enough. It hooked its claws all the same.

Ash managed to shove the man off of him with a struggling pinpoint. The boy fell hard against the metal of the van. Time didn't waste to take in standing; Ash called to Fang, but it was pointless to do. The Green Ninja had dug his foot square into his friend's chest. That gave him the leniency to become bird feed, all such a simple action leading to the climax of dangerous resolutions.

The raven dove with a shriek. Ash stepped forward, but the talons had already begun to work their way into Fang's skin. The duplicate's screams were shaken, disheveled, horrible to hear—Ash felt the wrap of the strange man's arm around his throat. The raven screamed without mercy, giving Ash a horrible reason to look and watch it flap its wings intimidatingly, scream its lungs frightfully, before the man's grip took a _twisted _turn. His neck snapped. Ash fell to the ground, dead.

…

**_-Yang-_**

I didn't have the slightest idea where that huge flippin' bird had come from, but I really didn't care. It dove out of the sky like an insane fowl, slamming its _whole body _against Bizarro Cole's face, taking him out with talons sharper than knives and a beak to pick bones with. I had had some strange intuition that I'd be seeing these guys again—call it "Just My Luck" if you want to, but I felt like everything that…the face-robber had said was true, about returning from the dead, I mean. Every enemy I'd defeated already seemed to hone in on the resurrection fad. Who was to say these guys wouldn't reappear?

Kai snapped Bizarro Zane's neck; the robot fell to the ground in a heap of nothing. Bizarro Cole's shrieks filled the air completely. Every atom warmed and moved faster because of his shouts. They were bloodcurdling, scary, and definitely sounded like something I would hear in a horror movie. Blood spewed out every new tear in the skin that the crow gave. It really took the time to dig in its nails…

I jogged towards the back of the slick white van, my socks ruined completely from the dirt and grass they'd suffered. My fingers clamped around the handles. Yanking open the door, I found the back empty of seats, but the body of the Yin lying softly in the shadow, her body still wound in leather whip. Her cue had come with the flutter of her eyelids and parting of her lips. She was waking up. My assumption was that she'd passed out from the huge dose of adrenaline she had just gotten so early in the morning. It wasn't exactly the nicest way to wake up, with shrieking of a dying man playing jagged harmonies behind me, although waking up to this was better than not waking up at all. I reached forward to untie the whip that had somehow snaked a complete tornado around her body. Seiko groaned in uncertainty. She was hardly awake.

_"Shh," _I hushed softly. My fingers wrapped around the end of the whip, and I gently pulled, trying not to give her rug burn or something. I sensed Kai coming up beside me. It came in handy to have the ability to catch someone's appearance before your eyes looked and your eyes heard. Definitely the perfect skill for a ninja. Seiko's small chest rose and fell so barely I was unsure that it even was happening. "It's okay. You're safe now."

"Snickerd—?" Seiko croaked. Her voice stopped before the _–oodles. _I smiled at her half-lidded, almost intoxicated look, which made her look completely poetic, considering she was a damsel in distress that was thrown into the classic white stalker van. She dazed her way through a head roll. Kai reached forward to wrap his own fingers around a tight portion, and I thanked him silently, because, well, the whip was tighter than I thought. Good thing Seiko wasn't fat. If she was fat, she would've died from suffocation by now.

Was Caroline's whip cursed? I didn't quite get why it was so enchanted by tightness. Kai and I managed to wrangle a percentage of it loose, which was loose enough for Seiko to slowly wiggle her way out of. It cleared her tiny hips without any trouble. I reached out my hand, as did Kai, which of both Seiko took in her dainty hands to pull herself up. I felt my heart pound under her soft touch. The electric spark that kindled the second she touched me quivered to life within my body. It crawled up my arms, slow, sweet, warming. She seemed not to notice—or maybe, I thought grimly, not even have the same experience. Seiko drug herself up with a grimace on her face. "Ow. I. Freakin'. Hurt. Like, _all _over."

I opened my mouth to respond, but I was beat. "I'm sure," Kai returned. "You took a large beating."

Seiko swung her legs over the end of the van, pulling her hand out of mine to place against her forehead, automatically slipping her other out of Kai's. Her eyes squeezed shut. "Can you walk?" I asked softly.

"What, are you gonna carry me, Snickers?" Seiko peeked at me through an eyelash.

I shrugged. "If I have to," I answered. I felt my face begin to flame, and saw something in her eyes tint, too, but I didn't really know what it was. Was I even capable of carrying her, ridiculously tiny or not? The answer was probably no. I was offering things I couldn't promise. Then again, I knew that Seiko more than likely wouldn't let me carry her _any_where, and to my relief, she rolled her eyes to dust it off.

"I really doubt that, Goldy Locks. Now, what pussy is screaming, and can you get her to stop?" Seiko looked past me, over my shoulder, and I noticed that Bizarro Cole's screams had become dim. I turned. He had fallen onto the ground, face so mutilated that Seiko wouldn't recognize him—which I found incredibly helpful, because I couldn't imagine what she'd react like to a doppelganger of her brother. The bird flapped its way back into the air, hovering, debating whether or not to strike again. It did something that I didn't necessarily think I'd ever actually see. Ever. As long as I lived.

"My mommy like crows, an' so do I," the crow said—but it sounded like a little boy's voice. Raw, realistic, and small. I felt a shiver float through me—somehow, something about his voice stirred an awakening within my body, although, I don't know, it was crazy to think that a bird just talked. It's mouth didn't even move or whatnot. The cheery continuation of the boy's voice speech from a bird that fluttered like a hummingbird over its victim blew me away more. "And I think it's rude for you to be mean to her. Sensei says that wrongful acts should be punished. Should _you _be punished, Mister?"

Without waiting for an answer, the bird dove again, and this time, I had to turn away. The squishing noises, the shrieks, the snap of eyes from their sockets made me squeeze shut my eyes. Kai made a disgusted noise, and I found that Seiko wasn't fond of it, either. She slapped a hand over her mouth and turned away immediately. It sounded like squeezing the water out of a dishtowel.

"Did that bird _talk?" _Kai hissed furiously.

I swallowed. "I-I'm not surprised," I managed. I was about to throw up the nothing in my stomach. I reached forward to brace myself against the back of the van, my hands clasping over the edge, blinking continuously to keep away the stinging in my eyes. It was disgusting. Vaguely, I noted that the screaming had cut off abruptly, leaving the world into an eerie silence. It curled around my ankles, twisted around my neck, wove into my hair. The sound of fluttering wings bred fear into my heart. "Birds. Talking. God, this is…_crazy…" _

"Birds don't talk, dummy!" I heard the boy's voice, and whirled. Standing behind me was a little kid, no older than probably eight or nine, his face alight with the excitement of the kill. His skin was clean, fair, and his eyes were a musky gray. His hair was a muffled blonde, gilded, almost. And his oval, perfectly shaped chin harvested the happy smile. Well, it was more _expectant, _really. He wore some kind of modified ninja suit, like a kimono that was made for a little kid. It was black in contrast to his light features. "When have you ever met a bird that talks?"

"Where did you…" Kai pointed back and forth between the road and the little boy, daring to make sense of this insane situation. My jaw dropped. Really. Where did this kid even come from?

"I was just there!" The boy laughed, and flapped his arms. "You 'member, the crow? I saved you!"

It took me a minute. It took _all _of us a minute. I looked at Kai, trying to find something there, but really nothing but a dropped jaw. Then, I looked at Seiko, who looked completely mortified beyond all get-out. We stared at each other. This little kid was _the crow, _the talking bird that committed murder of Bizarros on-site? Impossible. Wouldn't that require him to be a shape-shifter or something? And that actually didn't happen…did it?

_"You _were the crow?" Seiko repeated, choking. The little boy looked at her from between Kai and me. And the largest smile beamed on his face, so bright that it almost wiped out the sun in embarrassment for not being as bright as that little boy's smile. He reached out his arms, like a child clenching and unclenching his fingers, a yearning form of sign language that _all_ children used, universally. His little feet swapped in his small-dance, a dumb little thing that he switched feet to, in anticipation. I looked at Seiko in confusion, but she looked as freaked out as I felt.

The little boy's jig moved him forward. His dance became a run, and within seconds he'd burst between me and Kai, plowing into Seiko's creamy white legs, wrapping his arms around them and burying his face. Seiko's eyes widened. Her confused expression carried to look back and forth between the two of us, except we couldn't offer any help. I didn't get why he was clinging to her. What did I miss?

The boy raised his face. He tilted his head back, giving her a tiny-toothed smile. His mess of unruly, wavy blonde hair tilted with the motion. Seiko raised her hands back, her lip curling in that way it did when she wasn't understanding/enjoying a situation. I looked down at the kid again. "My name is Bokuyo!" He said, friendly. Seiko cocked an eyebrow.

"Um. I'm Seiko?" She offered, and awkwardly patted his head. It came as encouragement to the small boy, and he giggled. Seiko's hand recoiled backwards to her chest like she was scared he would bite her or something.

"I know," he giggled. "'Cause Sensei told me already."

"_Sensei_?" I repeated. I spoke before he could continue. "You know Sensei Wu?"

"Of course, silly! He tol' me all this stuffs last night! But I knew her already before he ever said anythin' to me," gasped the little boy. He turned his head towards me with a smile that made him close his eyes, it was so big. He looked like one happy camper. I almost envied him. _Almost. _

"How do you know her? _And _Sensei?" I asked urgently.

Bokuyo never answered me, instead turning towards Seiko again, and he reached up his arms. He did that hand-clench thing that was a total _Pick me up _sign. Seiko looked appalled. "Pick me up!" cried Bokuyo, like I'd said so. I tried to catch her eyes, but she was too busy staring at the little kid to raise her face. Bokuyo's little face brightened that she was giving him attention. "Please? Pick me up, Mommy! Pick me up!"

_…_Mommy?

"MOMMY? Whoa, whoa, _whoa, _little dude, I am _not _your mommy," Seiko pushed her hand against his face, then, gently moving him away. I reeled. It was normal for _babies _to mistake some different people for their mommies, but Bokuyo was into his life. How could he mistake who his mother was? Maybe he never knew his mom and was trying to…er…make up for it?

Bokuyo didn't take the rejection, and giggled like there was some kind of joke. He poked at her legs. I wasn't surprised when she pulled them onto the van with her so he couldn't reach them, tucked underneath her. Bokuyo flapped his hands like a bird, but never changed or took off. "You're so silly," he laughed. "It's probably 'cause you don't know me yet. Daijiro says that I should take it slow, but I'm just so excited to see you!"

Then, it was a spring of questions that most likely hurt the boy's head. Seiko said, "You don't know _me! _Why are you running up and calling me your _mother?" _

Kai. "_You _know Daijiro?"

Me. "Who's Daijiro?"

Seiko. "Do I _really _look that old to you?"

Bokuyo turned flustered. He pulled his hands to his chest and blinked rapidly. "Um. Well…uh…I know you 'cause…'cause you're my mommy, an'…"

Seiko stared down at him. Her eyes were hard. "I am _not _your mommy."

"Yes you are." Bokuyo patiently itched his gloved hand. "You just don't know me yet. That's what Daijiro says."

"Who's Daijiro?" I asked again, but I was speaking to nothing. No one listened.

Seiko's face turned into a confused scowl. "What are you _talking _about, Short Stack? Who the crap is Daijiro? And of _course _I don't know you. I met you, like, two seconds ago."

"Well…" Bokuyo shifted feet. "No. You don't understand. You don't know me yet 'cause you haven't _had _me yet, Sensei says." Seiko opened her mouth to protest, but I reached out and put my hand on her leg to silence her. I stared, riveted, at the little boy. He was the center of our attention. He looked uncomfortable to be there, but continued well enough in a shaky voice. "See, Sensei says I come from the future, where the grass isn't green. I 'member it there. You were there. Jus' me and you. You were sad 'cause Daddy died, and… And then…Sensei came, and you let him take me, but you said it would be okay 'cause I'd meet you here. He said he wanted to take me because he wanted to change the outcome of the future, and I could help do that! And then Sensei took me to train me to be a _shinobi, _an' then I met Daijiro an' Maru an' Koemi an' we have a lotta fun an' stuff. An' Sensei said I would get to meet you soon, an' now I found you, Mommy!" Gradually, with every 'an', his voice had become more excited. Bokuyo smiled hopefully at Seiko, but she looked the opposite of mystified. Horrification was tattooed across her face. _Oh, no, _I thought, an instant before the rant came.

"You're _insane!" _she yelled. "What the hell is this? The future? Are you kidding me? You couldn't have come up with a better excuse than that? Really? Wow! WOW!" Seiko laughed—er, _cackled. _I looked at her sternly. "You have got to be _kidd—"_

My hand slipped along her thigh. Warmth spread through my body at the touch, but she silenced, her voice cutting off sharply. God. Her legs were smooth. Seiko glared at me. "Don't _touch _me, Snickerdoodles," she snapped.

"Then be nice to him."

"Are _you _insane? Do you not hear—"

Bokuyo didn't take that reject, either. He smiled at her. "Denial is okay!" he said cheerfully. "It will come to you, Mommy!"

"Don't _call me _Mommy!"

"Bokuyo," Kai interrupted, squatting down to the kid's size. The little boy turned happily towards him. He was completely unfazed by Seiko's screaming. I looked at her to find that she was shaking her head, hand to her cheek. Of course this was overwhelming. I wasn't even getting it. Bokuyo was Seiko's son from the future? Why did Sensei bring him back, if any of this is true? Kai seemed to want to get to the bottom of it as much as I did. "What did you mean when you said the grass isn't greener in the future?"

Bokuyo smiled. "It's a metaphor-thingy!" He clapped his hands. "Daijiro says that it's because the Great Battle was lost, and all of Ninjago died with it. Mommy and I lived in a place called Tokyo." The little boy grinned proudly. "The grass isn't greener there because there is no Green Ninja. Daijiro has told me the story a million times."

I felt my heart stop. Seiko and Kai both looked at me. I could feel their gazes bearing into my skin, my cheek, my mouth. I looked down at Bokuyo, hoping I'd heard that wrong. "Where is he?" I asked. My voice sounded distant, detached.

Bokuyo bowed his head. It was the first sign of sadness we'd seen in him since we met him. "When Kaos the Deadly and Lord Noel took over the world when Ninjago was destroyed, they took the Green Ninja, Prince Kai, Dr. Zane, Mister Cole, Mister Jay, and Mister Rikku into custody. Daijiro says only one of the Seven escaped, which I found out was Mommy." Bokuyo gestured to Seiko. "She only got out because the Green Ninja told her to take Grampa and run. And then Kaos the Deadly and Lord Noel took the Green Ninja and killed him in front of the whole world to show what life was like if anyone acted out. Daijiro says it's because of the stuff called venom or somethin' that the Green Ninja didn't win. He couldn't fight the side he supported, and that's what got him killed."

Slowly, my heart had begun to sink, and now, I could no longer feel it beating. I felt sick to my stomach, weak. I didn't want to believe it—I _couldn't _believe it. The Devourer's venom would be the death of me. I would _die _because of it. Unable to withstand anything more, I turned away from Bokuyo and the others. I shuffled out into the deserted road. How could this be? If Bokuyo was telling the truth—I had no reason to believe he wasn't—then the world as we know it would no longer exist. Ninjago would be completely destroyed in the Great Battle because I couldn't pick a side. Right now, the darker part of me—the infected part—wasn't out, but I could feel him, prickling at the edges of my perception with knives and laughter like liquid hate. I sank to my knees. Withstanding my own weight was just as difficult as withstanding the information I'd just received. If Sensei had brought back this little kid—which, the Eye wasn't telling me otherwise, making me _know _it was true, since the Eye normally said when stuff was a lie—then he _knew _about it. Sensei had seemed extremely sketchy when I'd met him yesterday, but I didn't know that he was so aware of my future. How could this _be? _

I sensed her move behind me. That ability came in handy sometimes. Seiko's hands curled around my shoulders, comforting, but this time, it didn't calm me at all. I felt hysterically confined within myself. I was going to die—to _destroy _Ninjago—because I couldn't pick a side. There had to be a way to prevent that. Sensei obviously knew, because he brought Bokuyo back from the future for a reason. But what did he have to do with anything? Why was he important? I had all the notions to tell me that maybe that kid didn't know, but this Daijiro probably did. Though that wasn't my basic concern at the moment. There was a way to prevent myself from doing the fate I was destined to live…but what exactly was it that would stop me?

* * *

_**Only time will tell. **_


	24. Chapter 24

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:  
**Intuition

Noel stepped into the clearing.

For miles, the only thing he saw was trees, dead of all proximities, with mangled bark so torn that it was difficult to tell one from the other, like a continuous, repeating backdrop that he couldn't shake. These trees—called the _Wasure Ki, _formally—never grew leaves, but harbored small, demonic animals towards their homely shelter. Noel had studied this grove ever since he was a child. He was drawn to the standoffish way this forest parted itself from others with crooked, gnarled trees that bent the wrong ways, curling and swirling into all different patterns that human trees could not. They looked like foliage that grew only in children's storybooks, in horror stories aimed to frighten toddlers into eating their vegetables whole, rather than native growth of the land. The pure white grass reaching his ankles parted before he came into contact with it. Not only were the occupants of the Underworld aware of the new King's respected atmosphere, but the plants knew as well. Wind willowed itself into his hair. It rustled his cape in a hushed hello as he approached the long, spiraling for yards away from where Noel stood, his boots stepping hard against the edge of the blackened water. He stared into the murky surface. He suspected as much; the creature he desired to see did not appear just by the sound of his feet cracking against the harshened earth. It was difficult to ascertain if it was actually _here, _like it had been a many hours ago.

The suns' heat burned his flesh. There was no way he could _command _the creature to come at will, for this creature wouldn't want to appear in the daylight, anyway. Beyond his own powers, Noel did not have the handy ability to make his subjects randomly appear. That went well with the desire to compel those he ruled into executing something he desired. His coronation was long enough to make his skin prickle with obvious anticipation. More time was spent introducing Noel—who he was sure the public was familiar with—than he did crowning the new King of the Underworld. Immediately after that ridiculous ceremony, Noel had tossed aside the crown but kept his uniform, although it was more difficult to make himself appear larger to fit into his father's royal robes. Noel was the brother who wasn't blessed with large physicality. It made him grind his teeth, groan, roll his eyes, and do every other impatient motion to act. Of course it would be the brother who didn't accept the throne that got the better of the genes. He was glad that he had the ability to alter his appearance otherwise he'd be moving in for a fitting. As a child, Noel would never have been able to fit into his father's gown. It was the only moment in Noel's life that he actually _respected _a gene he'd gotten from his mother.

"Come out, you pretentious bloke, I know you're down there," Noel called. His voice echoed through the snarled woods, but there was no indication that the creature he sought was still even here. The River of Doom passed a channel through the middle of Deadwood Forest, as he stood here now, looking for a sign other than his own cocky intuition that the undersea invader existed. Moments passed, but the answers he hunted never revealed themselves, and Noel frowned sternly towards the white grass. Surely it had to _still _be here; the suns were in the sky, it never would travel with them beaming downwards, penetrating the water at high temperatures! He clenched his red-gloved fists into balls, ready to hit something. Nothing ever turned out his way. Today didn't belong to him. First, he finally intercepted that little rat, Lloyd Garmadon, and the girl who he _knew_ he'd killed. He'd had a good feeling, coming ready with his Tendrils of Despair, only to come faltered by the jurisdiction that he couldn't stop himself from laughing. Laughter, he found, was such a damning thing. It was what let that ninja escape with the dragon. At least, out of it, Noel had gained the death of Lord Garmadon—although it _did _make him cringe. He'd had a soft spot for his old teacher. Nonetheless, whom he believed was on his side had deceived him into _really _supporting his son, which Noel knew he couldn't lay sleep to. He had accomplished the task that he knew his father would've done without a blink or pause. It brought the feeling of triumphance, but Noel would've felt better if his father were actually _here _to see it.

Noel turned away from the waters. He could've sworn that his intuition was right, that the creature was still here. But it appeared, for once, it was wrong. He scraped his boots defeatedly along the grass in somber trill. There was no use in coming born with these supernatural abilities (from his father) if they were more worthless than chiseled scavenger-birds. He cracked his knuckles to the beat of his angry heart.

Then his eyes caught a glimpse of something on the ground, by the water.

Noel bent to pick up the reflective object. He hadn't seen such a strange object before, but from what it appeared to be, it was a bracelet of some sort. The plastic had been what caught the sunlight. Somehow, the clasp had been torn—ripped apart, by the looks of it, by teeth. He ran his fingers over where the material had been stretched and thinned by pulling with difficulty. He turned it over. There was a medium-sized rectangular piece to the bracelet, which held a strip of white paper in its slip. Noel squinted at the traditional typed print.

**MITSUHIDE SEIKO RAE, PATIENT #39423485  
GUARDIAN(s): '****_Lou Mitsuhide, Cole Mitsuhide'_****  
ADMIT. DATE NOV.13/16 c.  
NINJAGO CITY INSANE ASYLUM, SUNNYSIDE INC.**

Noel purred. _Seiko. _That girl whom had proceeded to make a mess of his dining hall, who had been poisoned by a common little concoction in her Dapplejuno that humans called "roofies." Interestingly enough, more depth was administered to her mysterious personality! An insane asylum was _exactly _where Noel would've put her. She fit the characteristics of the unstable perfectly. He slipped the small wristband into the breast pocket, hidden inside of his cape, and swapped his attention back to the river. So the girl was near here, then? Wherever she was, Lloyd must have followed her. Their camp had to be nearby.

"So you must have seen them," Noel said loudly, seeming to make conversation with the wind. He straightened to full height and scanned the area with dark green eyes, lips pressed together and nostrils flared. As _if_ the creature would've crawled out of the cool, deep blackish-blue water. It found safety in the underwater weeds and hidden forests better than the light of the sun. Plus, Noel knew it would never be seen in the light. There needed to be shadow for it to even _consider _continuing an appearance.

Noel gave an enthused, _oh I see _frown when that was completely opposite the situation. He nodded his head and looked into the depth of darkness. The light reflected against the eclipsed waters. "That's fair enough. I suppose that Lloyd Garmadon knew you were here, too, but didn't know _what _you were. Understandable, since the water hides you completely. I must say, even _I _can't sense you. You are truly the master of disguise, my shadow-ridden friend. But I would prefer to speak with you face-to-face. Show yourself."

Again, there was no response. Noel could've given up with frustration, but his determined attitude was always his downfall. He decided he'd sit on the edge of the waters and wait for the dark, evil monster of the underneath to appear…no matter _how _long it took. Even if Noel had an intolerance of long circumstances, he could make _one _exception for today. Then, he sat there, plucked white grass, and began to wait.

…

Dani pushed Cole's thick black bangs off his forehead with a wet rag, supplied by the empty ice-cream tub that Edna refilled for her to eliminate the thinly red, contaminated water. The gaping hole in the middle of Cole's forehead was full of blood and, of all things, a pair of thin tweezers, shoved down the hole by Maya's thin, long fingers. Dani had requested Maya's help not because she _wanted _to—of all things, Maya was one of the world's assets that she couldn't _stand—_but because Maya was the only one with the guts to dig through Cole's shredded brain for the bullet. Because Dani was brought up as a witch, she was incredibly informed about the supernatural world that lay at the heart of Earth, and knew that Cole would heal independently. No elixir she could prescribe would heal him better than his body's own remedies. _However, _if they couldn't get the bullet out in time, his brain and skin would rebuild itself around it, he would _really _be paralyzed. _Forever. _

Gathered in the living room was a complete assembly of the whole population of the Garmadon manor. Dani felt a little claustrophobic, knowing without prying eyes she did her better, but didn't have the heart to tell everyone to scram. They were worried about Cole, who had bled mountains of blood onto the floor of the boys' bedroom _and _left a memory trail down the staircase. To be honest, she'd never seen so much red in one place before. It stained his face and covered her own pajamas, and her fingers were growing dry with it. His face was pale because he hardly had any of the life force left in him. She didn't feel anything—no worry, no anxiety, nothing, fortunately for her robotic programming. She dipped the rag deeper into the bucket and came back with a damp new swath to pull over his face. Maya bit her lip with concentrating force. She wasn't Dani's first candidate for a nurse, but to be honest, Maya knew more about vampires than Danielle ever would. Which probably was better to be had, because to know more of your own species was a little more acceptable than the alternative.

The vampire girl dug the bloody tweezers deeper into the bullet hole, tilting her head to serve for more of a view. "I swear, there's nothing in here," Maya hissed through clenched teeth. Dani finally took in the sheen of sweat on her forehead, the wide look to her eyes. _She's _scared, Dani realized. _She's actually worried about Cole. _It didn't earn her any brownie points with the witch, but she felt a pang of empathy. With a merciless creature like Maya, there wasn't much expectancy for actual emotion. It was hard to imagine someone so capable of destruction being able to feel weak emotions like so. Once, Dani had considered Caroline to be that exact definition, but without the possibility of doing anything but manipulation. There was a vast difference between the two enemies of the Ninja. Caroline was truly _evil, _truly dark, truly unable to be helped, but Maya was just a slutty vampire girl who had a touch of insanity, though with emotion. Coming to Dani as recognition of different species, she had this small epiphany that everyone was completely diverse. Sure, they could both be considered _villains, _but each of them had traits that made them not-so-the-same when you grouped all villains together. It was strange to be thinking about it when she was busy trying to save a life.

"There's _nothing _in here," Maya repeated angrily. She worked the tweezers through the hole in circles. To better her angle, she kept moving her head in different directions, but no approach seemed to give her a better eye. "It's _empty! _There's only one little straight shoot down, and I've been as gentle as I possibly can, but there isn't any other way for the bullet to go. I've reached the end. It's not _in here." _

"It's there," Dani insisted, trying to keep the snap out of her voice. "It didn't just _fly _out when no one was looking. Now, be careful and keep trying. It looks like more blood is coming out than before." She bent and swirled the rag through the water again. The living room contained the Walkers, Misako, and Lou; Zane, Jay, and Nya had been ushered out of the room to avoid having to see this. Before, if they'd had their memories, this may not have bothered them so much, but as it were, they were restored back to their 'children' settings and had never seen this happen before. Kai, Lloyd, and Seiko were—well, _gone. _

And Rikku—who Dani hadn't seen until earlier—was with Caroline.

He yanked her through the living room door now. He wasn't exactly gentle, for which Dani couldn't say she'd blame him. Her feet were welded together through Kai's fire, and her wrists were bound, forcing her to hop her way around. Dani hadn't faced her sister since she'd ripped out her core aboard the _Bounty 2, _killing her twin for the second time now. Her red hair had faltered into bangs and a French braid, and her jean jacket was stained by dirt. She looked…different. Dani felt her systems begin to heat abnormally. That normally happened when she was angry. It used to happen frequently after Julien brought his daughter back from the dead (sometime after the ritual to revive Kyon.) Back then, facing Caroline and knowing about what she'd done had agitated her more than anything. Now, facing Caroline and having the exact same experience but with more _baggage _was even more difficult.

Caroline turned her eyes on Dani with a wicked smile. Her lips turned upwards cruelly, showing her small white teeth. Danielle forced herself to remain impassive. "Lovely to see you all," Caroline said methodically. Her jovial tone made Rikku visibly bristle. He turned stone-cold, hating eyes on her.

"Oh, _you," _Maya groaned. Her gaze remained fixed on searching for that bullet—how hard could it be to find?—but there was a creep in her manner. "Just the psycho I wanted to see. You know, I most likely will rip you to pieces when I get this bullet out, and I will enjoy _every _second of it. But wait, didn't I _already _rip you to pieces? Did someone get interested and rebuild you, freak?"

Caroline looked amused. Her eyes turned on Maya, but she said nothing. She seemed to be enjoying this. Dani had spent enough years with her sister, human _and _robot, to know there was something she wasn't saying out loud, and brought it to everyone's attention to say so.

"What makes you think I'm hiding something?" Caroline asked. There was a simplistic smirk on her face, a knowing one. She _knew _something. It drove needles of ice into Danielle's skin; she wiped down Cole's smeary, blood-driven face to give herself a reason to detach her gaze from her robotic twin's. Rikku rolled his eyes.

"You're full of it," he growled. "I _know _you're up to something. Spit it out, Caroline."

"Or what?" She countered. She barely turned towards Rikku. Danielle witnessed the way that Caroline's body tilted, a shift of hips that made her look even more in-command. "You'll weld my hands together with the human torch? I don't think that's going to cause any problems for me."

"You won't be able to use a curler, or apply your pretty diva makeup, either," Maya said flatly. She moved the tweezers tenderly within Cole's brain. _How can she have not already found that bullet? _Dani wondered, growing uneasy. Something wasn't right. Where was that bullet? The tract it had entered through was a one-way deal; the only way for it to be removed was through the use of tweezers. Maya had probed her way through artery after mental artery to appear empty-handed in all cases. There should've been at least _some _kind of residue by now, but the only notice that there was a weapon came from the humungous hole in Cole's head and the endless pints of blood coming from his veins. Dani shivered against the sounds of squishing blood and flesh and tried not to run away screaming.

Caroline smirked again. "I don't think it'll be an issue," she repeated. Dani's intuition was growing more and more uneasy by the seconds. Caroline was up to something, as she always was. When they were human, it was so easy for Danielle to know when Carolyne was skirting around the edges, playing slyly underneath their father's nose. She hardly ever said anything because she knew she'd committed the same crime before. It still carried into their robot bodies as well. Maybe there really was spirit within their metallic shells after all. _Somewhere. _

"You're being _awfully _vague about your intentions, Caroline," rolled Rikku. He leaned against the doorjamb, cutting off her means of escape. Danielle had never really seen his eyes so cold, so harsh before. Normally, he was the easygoing one who breathed chi in and out of his nose when there was stress. Now, he was the herald of all things spiteful. He couldn't look at her without expressing that kind of raw emotion. "We know you're planning something. Can't you give us a hint or something?"

Caroline smiled slyly over her shoulder. Maya's face stiffened. Not because Caroline was irritating, but because she _still _couldn't find the bullet. _Where did it go? _Danielle wondered remotely. There weren't many places it could just disappear to— "Do you really give up that easy?" Caroline toyed. She twisted her hips, hopping around once to face Rikku with a full on haughty experience. Rikku didn't respond so much as to blink. "Wow. You used to be more fun."

"What are you planning, Caroline?" Rikku asked boredly.

Caroline's smile deepened. Dani became rigid with a quick intake of breath. _She's up to something deep, _she thought. Black lashes dabbed over her sister's eyes. _No, _she told herself, shaking her head, _that's not my sister. That's just a dark creature that pretends to be her. _"Do you know what the concept of _Yvette's_ _Falsetto _is?" She contradicted with her own question. Rikku tilted his head like a bird's.

"_Yvette's Falsetto _is when there is false information circulating a system," he said monotonically. "It's named after Tracy Yvette, who created a huge heist to take down the government sixty years ago."

Caroline looked appeased. "Precisely," she said, leaning backwards. "And you know what _Nise no Shinkirō _is?"

It was Danielle who answered. Caroline turned towards her sister expectantly. The ghost of a smile was on her face. "It's a false mirage," Dani said slowly. "It's when something is projected that isn't truly real. Like in the desert, when you see water."

"Correct! I'm surprised, you two know your history well." Caroline laughed like there was some kind of joke to it. She cocked her head to the side as she stared directly towards Danielle, contemplating and challenging her simultaneously. "_Yvette's Falsetto _happens with brilliance. _Nise no Shinkirō_happens with the help of supernatural assistance, doesn't it, Danielle?"

"What are you getting at?" snapped Maya. Her attention turned from the tweezers towards the robot who taunted everyone with style.

But Dani had already caught on—moments too late. What Caroline was implying was deeper than she would've imagined; it took her no time to stand up, kicking back her chair beside the couch in a hurry, shouting, "Grab her!" towards Rikku. He turned towards Caroline at the moment that the redhead turned towards him with a parting smile.

_"No!" _Dani yelled, and launched herself at her sister. But seconds as she was supposed to collide with a solid, real body, she found herself falling to the floor, collapsing on the carpet like she'd tripped.

Caroline was gone.

She'd never been there in the first place.

It was the same reason why Maya couldn't find the bullet, and Caroline's gun couldn't be found. Somehow, some supernatural force that was undetectable to Danielle's own powers, lowballing it or highballing it so drastically that it moved past her own supernatural frequency. It was almost like a dog whistle to humans; it sounded, undetected, unable to be heard except by certain species. In the paranormal world, a mystic force was somehow channeling enough energy from _ketzia knows what _to be able to produce a mirage. Whatever it was, it had the power to make Cole get shot by something that most likely evaporated after penetrating his brain cells. It had the power to trick everyone into believing that Caroline had come into this house, been _touched _by them all, been in the same room as them all, interacting with objects in the room like she was _real. _Something out there had more power than any creature Danielle had ever even heard of. It had tricked more than seven people, taking over their minds to make them believe they were seeing something that _was. Not. Real. _

If they could do that, what else did that mean it could do to them?

Danielle pushed herself off the ground, shaking. She probed the air, testing for supernatural frequencies beyond normal, but the only stations she caught belonged to Kiko and Cole. Was it possible that it was Kiko…? _No, _Danielle decided, _if it was Kiko, I wouldn't be able to sense her in the first place. _She looked down at the carpet underneath her as Rikku bent down to help her up. "Are you okay?" he asked, but Dani's eyes caught on something white against the dirty rug.

A piece of paper. Dani bent and picked it off the ground. It was neatly folded, a small square, but it had writing across it. Danielle's blood would've run cold if she had any, her fingers running across the lazy, ink script, and the postage of blood marks underneath the signature.

That 'something' was saying hello.

_I can hide anywhere. I can appear as anyone, anytime, anyplace, and  
I will assure you: you will_ _never know I am there. I could be your friend, your enemy, your parent, your sibling. My face is theirs. There is no way to tell the two of us apart. And under my wrath, you cannot escape me. How can you hide from the devil if you don't even know what he looks like? _

_I look forward to meeting you all face-to-face.  
Yours truly,  
Kaos the Deadly_

* * *

**How can you hide from the devil...  
if you don't even know what he looks like?**

_Keep your eyes open for a special "Of Yin and Yang" promo on DeviantArt soon!_

**Please **review, and go have a truly **EPIC **day/night!

_~Kairi _


	25. Chapter 25

**A/N: **Garmadon's first name is Damon.

* * *

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:  
**Of Chaos

When Misako pushed open the kitchen door, she found the committee gathered, their faces all fallen from grace. The room had been completely fixed by a little of Danielle's magic last night, which she was very grateful for, but the echoes of past events still clung to the cupboards, the sodden linoleum, and the empty space where the refrigerator had been. Everyone had swapped out their nightclothes for a fresh day outfit. In the makeup of the assembly: Rikku, Danielle, Kai, Lloyd, Seiko, and the little boy Bokuyo that they'd brought back. Each hovered at uncomfortable points in the room, dispelling tensions. Danielle and Rikku commissioned themselves at the circular table, now fixed, with the adorable, tiny Bokuyo placed beside Kai across from them. Lloyd leaned against the kitchen counter, his arms crossed, and face unreadable, but Misako knew him well enough to see things playing behind his eyes, gears turning in his mind as he thought. Seiko sat on the kitchen counter, her fingers curled around the warm cup of tea that Misako had made her a few minutes ago, her disheveled clothing swapped out for a whole pair. It actually was an enlarged sweatshirt of Damon's that Misako had pulled out of the closet for her over a pair of shorts that Dani had offered, but the clothing swallowed her whole. Misako couldn't tell she was wearing anything underneath the jacket.

When Lloyd had walked into the entryway, he had looked pale, and his feet had seemed too hard to lift. In her motherly fluttering, Misako had noticed there was a strange mark on Lloyd's cheekbone, hidden beside the far corner of his left eye. She'd thought it was initially dirt, until realizing it was some sort of birthmark. It wasn't recognizable.

Lloyd had been dumbfounded. His face never looked more distant than it did at that moment. To Misako's confusion, she'd found that Seiko trailed after him with a little boy on her heels. When she's asked who it was, Seiko had replied with equal obstruction, "That's apparently my kid." It was Kai who explained to the concerned Garmadon mother what had precisely happened, and that there definitely needed to be some sort of meeting between everyone involved in this. That hardly included herself, but she knew that Danielle and Rikku had much to tell the three of them as well. Misako was more involved in everything than Lou, Ed, or Edna, opting her the best adult resource to supervise the meeting, but references that the teenagers and robots made sometimes flew over her head. Besides, Edna was helping Jay and Zane cope in the living room. The sight of Cole's bloody entourage made them weak-kneed and queasy. Counseling them was a marvelous idea, and it kept them busy.

Information had already been exchanged. Danielle and Rikku had told Lloyd, Kai, and Seiko about their experience, and vice versa. Now it was only a matter of comprehending this information in a large group.

Bokuyo had wolfed down the plate of muffins that Misako had put in the middle of the table this morning. She had given him a glass of water to help, since there was no refrigerator to grab milk from. His round, childish face was respectful, as were his thank yous. Kai had already explained to everyone what Wu had called the _shinobi—_which included Bokuyo himself. Bokuyo had come back from the future with Wu's assistance to try and reshape the events that had become his destiny. His manners were well taught by the Garmadon brother that Misako loved. She looked into his wide gray eyes and saw something familiar there. He chewed happily on his muffin and played with the fray on Kai's shirt, completely compelled by the red strings that kept coming out the hem. Not once did Kai object to it.

Every time Misako looked at the little boy, she _did _see something familiar. His blonde hair fell into his eyes, wildly unkempt, and his rounded face beamed whenever he smiled. It didn't take a lot to get him to smile. Memories of when Lloyd was a baby flashed in her mind. Bokuyo reminded her of Lloyd. A lot. So much it made her chest tighten and her breathing stop for just one blissful, aching moment.

"So what you saw," Kai said slowly, breaking down every detail he could scrounge out of Danielle and Rikku, "was Caroline, but she wasn't really there? She was a mirage, you said?"

Rikku nodded. He slid the square piece of paper across the table towards Kai so he may be able to observe the scrawl once more. The message had burned into Misako's brain so fitfully, it stained the back of her eyelids whenever she blinked. "Somehow, this Kaos was able to take over all of our minds and make us all see the same thing, hiding behind it."

"Do you think Kaos was pretending to be Caroline by disguising himself as her?" Kai inquired as he studied the text through narrowed eyes. His jaw worked while chewing on the inside of his cheek. Bokuyo stuffed his face into another large muffin, and Misako smiled warmly, her heart tearing. He was so adorable it broke her heart.

Rikku sighed. "Perhaps," he said softly. "I am not sure. He disappeared awfully quickly if that's the case."

Dani turned a sharp look on him. "If he can compel _all _of us into believing we saw Caroline, I certainly think disappearing quickly is not an issue for him. You and I do not even _have _minds. We have interpretive interactive equipment in our brains that simulates thoughts. This _guy, _whoever he is, is powerful enough to do that to a pair of robots—I think we have something to worry about."

Misako agreed with her deeply. Lloyd stepped forward, removing himself from leaning casually against the counter, and walked up behind Kai to pluck the paper from his grasp. Kai's hands lingered, empty, in the air for a moment before falling against the tabletop. He looked annoyed, but tolerated it patiently. "This guy is able to compel us all," Lloyd repeated. His voice sounded innocent, lacking that ugly determination that Misako had heard last night. For now, Lloyd was free of the Other Guy. His eyes were more blue than they were red, whereas the contrast could be seen when he became consumed. "Then he can create mirages. It sounds a lot like what happened on the _Bounty 2 _a long time ago."

Kai turned in his chair, eyebrows furrowed. "What do you mean?" he asked.

After passing Kai the paper back, Lloyd shoved his hands into his pockets, bringing his shoulders closer to his ears. "When you were evil or whatever—or, well, not really _you, _I guess, but you know what I mean—you came in and tried to get me to give you back your mother's red ring. It was also conveniently the wedding ring that Jay had given to Nya. So, after a buncha threats and some wounds inflicted by my broom, I finally led you downstairs so I could get it from her and give it to you, 'cause you were holding a knife to my neck. I went to go get it, and after all this crap, you compelled all of us—me, Jay, Nya, Cole, and Caroline—into thinking you set the _Bounty 2 _on fire, and we all burned to death. Then we woke up the second we died and found out that it was just a mirage." Lloyd shrugged, scuffing his sneaker against the floor. "You compelled us all to think that's what happened."

Dani leaned forward. "Where was Zane?" She asked, pulling the paper that was in circulation around the group back into her possession.

"He was dead," Lloyd said softly, and Misako watched Rikku wince.

"So if 'my' whole existence was because of Eloquim," Kai made air quotations, leaning back in his chair, "then that must mean that Kaos is a Shadow Dancer with equal or greater power than Eloquim."

Lloyd nodded. "I would guess so."

"Kaos is targeting us, then?" Dani leaned forward. Her necklace, long with a large opal gem on the end, scraped against the table. She looked at Bokuyo's crumb-covered face questioningly. "Do _you _know why?"

Bokuyo set down his muffin, half-devoured, onto the plate in front of him. Misako could tell he meant business. "Sorta," said the tiny voice. "I mean, you're the famous band of Destiny's Ninja, so you are part of the Seven. Kaos the Deadly targeted them because they were the only thing that could kill him. He was scared they could end his reign. And he would do anything he could to make sure that they never stopped him."

Kai leaned his face into his hand, rubbing stress circles into his forehead. "So we know that even though Eloquim is dead," Lloyd said over him, "there's still another Dancer out to kick our butts. Does he want the Shadow Key, or what's he trying to do other than stop us? What kind of power is he hoping to gain?"

"Why were the Bizarro so focused on kidnapping Miss Seiko?" Rikku questioned. His hand gestured to the quiet girl huddled in the corner of the room, her hands clasped around her warm cup of tea. One eye peeked from the mask of her ebony hair. She said nothing.

Misako walked closer into the room. "When I was researching everything I could for the Green Ninja prophecy," she said, putting her hand gently on the back of Bokuyo's chair. She deliberately met everyone's gaze straight on, "I came across a few other ancient scrolls, but the ones that didn't involve the Green Ninja I never really paid attention to. There was one I remember reading that caught my interest. It was when I was reading up on the Dark Island. It said the Overlord existed there, and that ultimately he should be the ruler of that half of Ninjago, but there was one power source that could completely restore it back into full function. It was called 'Void' by the texts and theses I read. It had the ability to do worse of darkness what never had been done before, and that whoever possessed the power would be unstoppable."

Lloyd twisted his hips so he turned his gaze on Seiko. Misako watched the girl meet his gaze levelly over a drink of her tea, uncharacteristically silent. On her son's face was a smug look that she didn't like, but it wasn't a haughty smug; it was a smug that said _I knew it. _He looked back at Misako."Noel said that Void was worse than Aether, which is chaos and darkness. He'd said that Void was ultimate; it had no opposing elements."

Dani nodded. A heavily manicured fingernail rested against her creamy cheek as she pursed her lips in thought. "_Katerina, _my ma_ma, _used to talk about the concept of Void sometimes, although I never quite comprehended it. Void is a witch's worst fear because it is a higher form of Black Magic. Aether is the next step down from Void; after Aether is Darkness. Void is having the ability to undo creation. It's not demolition, it's just making something cease to be, whether that be a human or object. That's why last night, when she was manipulating the shadows, she was able to do so much damage with such a little thing. The fridge disappeared because Void swallowed it whole. And when something disappears into Void, it never comes back."

Kai, turned halfway in his seat, looked at Seiko. Misako noticed that the girl was staring deeply into her cup without meeting anyone's eyes. "So then, if Seiko is Void," he turned towards Danielle and Rikku, who stared blankly back, "Kaos will be interested in getting her power. He would be the ultimate ruler if he had it, right?"

Danielle nodded. "It would mean the worst for every corner of the world."

"So the Bizarro are working for Kaos, then," Lloyd said. He rubbed his arm. "Which brings us back to what Kaos is, and how he was able to compel our minds. He did such a good job with that that he actually put a bullet in Cole's brain, but not a real bullet."

Dani twisted the salt shaker on the center of the table. "I figured out it was a concentrated shot of _Damnatio memoriae_," she said, "which is an herb that toys with the memory. It goes back to a Latin phrase that means 'condemnation of memory.' It was a form of dishonor that could be passed by the Roman Senate upon traitors or others who brought discredit to the Roman State. The intent was to erase someone from history, a task somewhat easier in ancient times, when documentation was much sparser."

Rikku nodded in agreement. "The concepts here are similar. What Kaos injected into Cole was obviously to completely screw up something that Cole either remembered or thought he remembered."

"Eloquim was the guy who erased their memories," Kai said slowly. He looked at the ceiling as he verbally processed this all. "And then I killed him. Kaos obviously has plans to do with finishing and carrying out some of Eloquim's intentions, then."

Rikku rubbed his hands over one another. He looked towards Lloyd and Kai underneath furrowed brows. "Was Eloquim interested in gaining Void?" he asked.

Lloyd was the only one who could answer because Kai had been too busy being dead to know this. "He kidnapped Seiko and shot her up with that weird green stuff that turns people evil," Lloyd said helpfully. Then his cheeks got a little rosy. "Until she fought it off."

Rikku sighed. "I thought perhaps they were in cohorts and had the same goal," he said softly.

"There isn't any doubt they knew each other. I'm just concerned that this could lead to worse situations in the future if we don't do something to stop it." Danielle rubbed her temples. Misako watched her robotic fingers work circles into her false skin. "Which, obviously it will, because the little kid said that Kaos the Deadly had some lord-ish significance in the future."

Bokuyo sat up straighter. His bright face turned into a happy smile, willing to help. "Kaos was the biggest leader in the future," he supplied. Kai turned his head slightly to look down on the boy. "Noel ruled the people, but Kaos did the dirty work, if that makes sense. They were both in some kind of deal or somethin'."

Lloyd pulled his hands from his pockets to make a _What? _gesture. Misako saw something twisting in his eyes, but from here, she couldn't tell what it was. He was becoming too good at masking his emotions. "You said that Seiko got away because I—I mean, the Green Ninja told her to run, right? She took you to some place called Tokyo, and all of Ninjago was destroyed? Does that mean, if she escaped, that Kaos never _got _the Void?"

Bokuyo this time looked concerned. He stared down at his muffin thoughtfully. _Perhaps he doesn't know the answer, _Misako thought. _After all, he is a little boy, and I doubt that his mother—Seiko—ever told him everything she knew. _Instead of what everyone expected out of him, the ironic twist came into Bokuyo's tiny voice as he looked down at the muffin. He refused to meet anyone's eyes as he said sheepishly, "That's classified."

"_What? _Classified? _WHY?" _Lloyd stepped forward. Kai looked down at his hands sorrowfully. Bokuyo had already given so many details about the future; why was this detail, which could make all the difference to know, so classified? She reached towards him and scraped a gentle hand across his shoulder, and Bokuyo smiled, friendly, but she saw that he was sorry for not being able to give a real response.

The little boy played with his fingers. Misako noticed that Seiko still lingered in the corner of the kitchen, silent. Not once did she offer up anything to the debate. It made her motherly concern turn her attention towards the small girl, but Misako couldn't catch her eye. Seiko was staring at the floor, her mind elsewhere, and her cup held quietly against her chest.

Noticing that Lloyd's muscles had tensed underneath the fabric of his shirt, Misako moved towards her son to gently offer comfort in her hand, moving over her son's shoulder, ruffling the material of his shoulder around it. She found that Lloyd didn't decline her, instead reaching to take her hand in his own. He gave it a gentle squeeze before dropping it. He was nervous. But who wouldn't have been? Everything Bokuyo had told them, about the Green Ninja's death most thereof, was piling stress onto her already-stressed little boy. She thought back to the day that Damon had begun to turn into that wretched version of himself, eaten away by the Devourer's venom completely. She'd held so tightly onto Lloyd's baby body, praying that Damon wouldn't hurt either of them. They'd had to flee to the monastery, where Misako had hoped to find Wu, but the place of peace had been empty. She'd sat in the courtyard, sobbing, until he returned hours later, beaten, bloody, torn up. When she had asked what happened, he'd responded, "I was going to look for you. But I ran into your husband first." Then Wu had noticed the little boy in her arms. That was when his whole viewpoint of her forever changed.

Oh, Wu. Misako knew in her heart that she'd made the wrong choice, staying with Damon. Why? Why was she stupid enough to stay with him? Why hadn't she done what she _wanted _to do, and what would've made _Wu _happy? The answer was obvious. Despite who Damon had become, Misako had loved him so much. But she'd _also _loved Wu. Maybe more than she ever really recognized.

"Why can't you tell us?" Lloyd demanded, bringing Misako out of her memories. He didn't sound harsh, but there was urgency in his tone. Bokuyo offered a tiny smile, but it wasn't him who responded.

"Change anything, change everything. If he tells you it all, then it could harm the future more than it already has, with everything he's said now," said a voice. Misako turned her head and found him, standing in the doorway, his olden face ashen and raw, his kimono torn, but dirtied, his face happy, but sorrowful, and her heart leaped into her chest. _I was just thinking about you, _she would've said. She smiled widely. From beside her, Lloyd made a strangled noise of surprise. He met her eyes with his deep brown ones, and his grin broadened, his eyes turning into liquid at the sight of her. Misako's heart began to beat again. He opened his arms.

Without hesitating, Misako ran to him. Her body collided with his—warm, solid—and she buried her face into his shoulder with happy tears of joy. _I love you, _she thought, and tightened her grip around him. "Misako," he breathed softly in her ear. She clutched handfuls of his kimono, smelling his sweet, woodsy scent as it filled her nostrils completely. She held onto him tightly. _I love you, I love you, and I missed you so much. _

"Garmadon?" she heard Kai's voice say incredulously.

"I prefer Damon, now, but thank you, boy." Damon's voice rumbled through his chest against her ear. She held in her tears when she realized she was trembling. His arms around her tightened.

"Your first name is Damon?" she heard Kai say. Feeling Damon nod, Misako realized that perhaps no one _knew _his first name anymore, because he usually just went by his last name.

"Dad! You're okay," she heard Lloyd breathe, and realized that she was probably hogging the hugs. She turned around to see Lloyd's face twisted into a ray of light so magic, that the second she stepped away, he ran into his father's arms. "I thought you were gone forever," he said in a shaky voice. "The dragon—he took you to—"

"No, Lloyd," said Damon softly. Misako smiled. Maybe they weren't really related by blood, but they were father and son, no matter what anyone said. "Your dragon did not take me to the hospital, like you asked. I was legally dead. They would've made a huge ruckus if I showed up as a dead man on their doorstep."

Lloyd leaned back. His expression turned confused. "Where did you go, then?" He asked slowly. Damon smiled and held his son at arm's length.

"I went to the monastery," he said. Misako wrapped her arms around herself from the sudden chill she got. "Danielle has stocked the place with potions. I was fed one to help me reawaken again." He smiled at his son gently. Misako realized that over the years, Damon must've developed more of a liking to the boy they had adopted. "I can't leave you _alone, _not yet, son. Not yet."

Lloyd smiled. His Adam's apple bobbed when he swallowed. "What's 'the monastery'?" He asked.

"Remember that place we told you about, a really long time ago?" said Kai's voice from behind Misako. She turned to see him stand. "Before you came along, we used to live with Sensei in the monastery of peace. The snakes destroyed it after we wrecked your treehouse."

Lloyd let go of his father to turn around. His face was mischievous, but he was smiling. "Yeah. My treehouse. You still owe me one, you know. That place was freakin' _cool." _

Kai grinned. Misako felt it, too: Lloyd was completely himself, for now. It seemed like when he got worked up, that was when the Other Guy became a part of him. _When his heart beats faster, or he becomes consumed with emotion, _she thought suddenly, _he turns. When that dies down, so does That Part of him. If we can just keep Lloyd calm, he'll keep That Part at bay, and we can help him fight it. _It seemed so easy to say, but Misako knew it would be difficult. Kai put his hands on his hips and gave that smile he always did when he knew something others didn't. "Good to see you, Lloyd. There's this creepy guy that looks just like you—he's been crawling around here for a while—and he's kinda vicious. I'm just glad to see you again."

Lloyd's cheeks turned red. He looked at the floor. "I know. He scares me," he murmured. Damon lifted his arm and wrapped it around his son's shoulders, pulling him tightly against his chest.

"Don't worry, son." Damon pressed his face into Lloyd's hair. Misako could've cried to see it. "He won't be hanging around here anymore."

"How can you be so sure?" asked Lloyd warily.

"Because I will do whatever I can to help to fight him off," Damon said defiantly. In his face was the confidence that Misako had seen in him every day since she had first met him. His mind was set, and nothing would change that.

"Me, too." Kai smiled at Misako's little boy. She watched Lloyd give a tentative smile back. "I told you, there isn't anything I wouldn't do to protect you, kid. Not only is it my job and complete purpose, but it's because you're my brother, and I wouldn't let one of my team destroy himself. Maybe Jay and Zane and Cole don't remember, but—it's in their blood too. If they were here, they would do the same." He spoke of the brainwashed friends like they were Elsewhere. Misako figured it was easier for him to speak of them in that context than it was to say that they weren't themselves anymore. "And I'm going to do whatever I can to get them back."

Misako's heart warmed. Look at everyone, so willing to protect her son, to save him. If Lloyd ever had the thought that he was alone, he would be dead wrong. She reached out to touch his arm. She was happy.

"But this doesn't solve what we're going to do," Rikku said, jarring everyone. They turned their eyes on the dark haired, serious face of Zane's robotic brother. "What are we to do now? Kaos has his eyes on us. If he somehow knew that Cole was remembering something, that means that he was watching us, or at least had somebody positioned close enough to realize it. He then proceeded to create a mirage that held a real gun and shot the real gun and put a real bullet full of _Damnatio memoriae _in his head. How is that possible?"

"What if we're just being toyed with?" Kai asked. He turned to Rikku. "What if Caroline is really back, and she did some kind of magic-thing and disappeared into nothing, leaving that note to freak us out?"

"That wouldn't explain why this Kaos the Deadly is a part of the future, then," Danielle opposed. Her hands rested, clasped together, against the tabletop. Her eyes looked down her nose at the paper of doom in front of her.

"Well then what if he's doing this to freak us out? Giving us that note _knowing _we'd break it down and try and understand it, ultimately screwing with our _own _minds?" Kai started to pace in a slow line, passing beside Seiko before returning to his chair and repeating the cycle again.

"I do not believe that is the case," Danielle said. "What he says is true, and we must take that seriously." She looked up at Kai and watched him move, her eyes empty. "How _can_ we hide from the devil if we don't know what he looks like?"

* * *

**NFAN CONTEST **is **still open!** I will **take entries at any time, **guys!

**Burning Fan Question: What is a recurring concept throughout the NFAN series**? A one-worded concept, unless the concept is one thing but has multiple words in its title. Like, "The Shadow Key" or something. (**I.E:** Death; Rebirth; Void-which it isn't a recurring concept, but its an example of a 1 word concept!) (And no you cant use the ones I just listed!) **there are plenty, you shouldn't have trouble!**

**NFAN FANS OF THE WEEK: **I couldn't decide between the two, so I will have both be the fans of the week: **HersheyChocolates101 ****_and _****EdgeChronicles01! **I love reading what you have to say about each chapter, guys! Thank you so much!

**Please review, **and **go have an awesome day/night!**!

~Kairi


	26. Chapter 26

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:  
**That's _US? _Since When?

Looking at Cole curled on the couch, his body still, his chest barely rising to fall, and the front of his shirt completely drenched in blood, Jay felt queasy to his stomach. He worried over Cole so badly, it turned his insides around and around worse than a dryer full of clothes. Over the course of a month, you became extremely attached to people. Even Moustache Man, who held Cole's hand and rubbed circles across the back of his tanned skin. Jay hadn't ever seen this kind of thing happen before, with bullets and serious blood loss, but he felt like, deep down, he had. His heart ached. The blonde-haired girl had promised that he would be fine, but it was really hard to think that was the case. People weren't meant to sit so _still. _

Curled across the floor beside the couch with Zane at his side, Jay looked towards the deep brown recliner towards Nya, who watched with tears in her eyes, her feet tucked underneath her and hands clasped over her tight belly, stretched underneath her shirt so badly the material was probably ruined. She had appeared into the living room from her bedroom after the "operation" was done on Cole's head. His poor, poor head. The adults hadn't really wanted Jay, Zane, or Nya to see any of it, which he couldn't say he regretted. Just surrounding himself with the metallic scent of coppery blood made his head numb. In his evil, evil mind, he kept replaying the moment he woke up after he heart the shot to see blood splurting out his friend's forehead like a chocolate fountain. It made him cry, so instead of thinking about it again—which he was seriously gonna do if he didn't distract himself—he looked at Nya.

The boys had figured out that she was prone to serious mood swings. For now, she adopted tears and sorrow. He didn't know much about her, since she didn't know how to talk in anything other than one-worded-explanations and couldn't really say anything about herself. Which deemed her not as close to the boys as Jay, Zane, and Cole had become, but she was their friend anyway. She was a little strange, to say the least, always making cooing noises and touching her belly and smiling. _Then _she'd do some weird mood-360 and turn into a demon who could seriously claw your eyes out if you broke the ice.

So, Jay didn't really know Nya that well. As far as he knew, she liked to doodle. Ed-nah had bought her a notebook of blank, unlined paper, just so she could draw inside of it; however, she put such force onto her crayons that she eventually broke them all and had to get a whole new box instead. She plowed through seven boxes in just fourteen days. That was two boxes _a day. _And Ed-nah kept spoiling her and buying her more—the cheapo kind that came from the dollar store, not the actual big boxes with all different hues and shades and junk. Jay kind of thought it would be cool to see the look on Nya's face if she got a big box of crayons with all those luxuries inside, but didn't want to ask Ed-nah to get one. Nya would most likely demolish all of them in an hour. Still, though, her expression of awe and adorable-ness would be kinda cute to see.

Looking at her now, Jay felt something inside of him stirring, willing to come to life as he looked at her, but he didn't know what it was. A tugging against his thoughts. Trying to direct him into another thought process—one he thought he _should've _been thinking—but he just couldn't name what he had to think about, other than his worry for Cole.

Nya caught his eyes suddenly. The innocent look on her face reminded him of something—déjà vu. He felt like he'd seen her looking at him like that before. Which, knowing Jay, he probably had, 'cause he found himself liking to look at her, but it felt _deeper, _like some time before a month ago or something. It nagged at him so badly he wanted to ask her, but that would be stupid, because Nya wouldn't be able to answer him. The florescent light on her face made him cock his head like he was listening to her talk. The room was silent except for the sounds of hearts beating and Ed-nah and Ed-duh moving around the room, fixing things that didn't need to be fixed. She blinked slowly back, and brought her hand towards her mouth to chew on her already-nubby nails. She did that a lot. Add that to the teensy list of things Jay knew about Nya. Nervousness, Zane called it all the time, and stress caused her to nibble on her nails, but she did it so constantly that he didn't think she _had _nails anymore. Jay didn't like it. It made her look like a mouse, all jittery and scared, and he knew she was _not _a mouse. She wasn't _supposed _to do that.

Before he even knew he was going to say it, Jay's mouth moved quicker than he did. "Don't _do _that. I _hate _it when you do that," he said, reaching forward to grab her wrist. His fingers closed around her skin, soft and blood pounding steadily underneath in her veins.

And the strangest thing happened to him.

A spark of electricity shot up his arm, making his heart shoot into a frenzy. It jarred him deep into his bones. It touched every corner of his body, sparking his fingertips, making every hair on his arms stand up completely. It tingled up his spine, reddening his ears and flushing his cheeks, combing across his scalp, and licking flames _all _over his body to where Jay could barely breathe. His fingers moving across her skin, light as a feather's touch, had startled this strange occurrence out of him. He withdrew his hand instantly. But the vibrating that came with the electricity still moved through him; he could still feel the tingle of his fingers in the aftermath. His brain felt like it had been badly electrocuted by his finger in a socket. It didn't hurt. It just made him feel more…awake. He felt like he hadn't really been looking at anything until he'd touched her. He hated to admit it, but it felt _good._

She, too, had felt it. Nya's eyes widened. She didn't yelp, unlike the reaction Jay had anticipated. Bravo. Her hand hadn't moved from where it was when Jay touched it. Hovering between her mouth and extension towards Jay, a visible example of the word _almost _or the phrase _not quite. _His heart thundered. Oh, man. Wow. That was…

Wow.

Hey…she was kinda cute.

Nya's cheeks reddened. She looked away from Jay and finally dropped her hand onto her belly for support, her hands tracing the curve of her pregnancy. Just like that, the connection they'd shared was gone. He felt colder in its absence. Only the memory of the electric fire moving through him existed now, and memories weren't as fun as reality. Jay dropped his own gaze to his hands in his lap.

He felt so cold without her.

It was weird to think, but…he really did. Without Nya in his line of vision, Jay felt like someone had stolen his insides, and he was a hollow man. Weird, right? She was the random girl who doodled and broke crayons and spoke like Yoda. But Jay kind of…_liked _that.

And then Maya walked in.

Don't get him wrong, she was nice and all, but she was so abrasive it made the green sides of kitchen sponges look like fluffy bunnies. She'd been in here earlier, spoon feeding Cole from a glass of thick, hearty red liquid, until disappearing for a while. She looked so serious all the time. It was weird. Jay turned when she opened the living room door and exchanged a weary glance with Zane. Stuck on her index finger through the center hole, she had a shiny reflective silver disk. It immediately peaked the boys' interest. "Alright, kiddies," she said loudly, getting their attention, "I've got a little activity for you."

"What is it?" Zane asked, enthusiastic. He wasn't a very negative person. He sat up on his knees and looked at her with huge eyeballs. Maya half-smirked at him while clomping over the carpet in a pair of heels towards the small TV against the wall, bending to push a white button on a black box. A square plate ejected from the black box, and the TV screen lit to life in a dance of black and white dots as Maya set the disk gently on top of the salver. Zane grabbed tufts of the carpet in anticipation.

Maya gently urged the plate back inside of the box. It gave an animatronic whir after it disappeared. "I downloaded everything off of the Memory Chip onto a DVD," she explained, although Jay didn't know what either of those things were. Maya forced herself into a stand as the TV flickered from black and white into a steady blue. "Kai thinks that if you watch this, you'll maybe remember something about your past selves. He'd love to be in here right now, but he's busy chit-chatting, so I guess _I'm _your babysitter now." Maya smiled at Jay. It was a creepy, _I-know-where-you-live _kind of smile that made him shiver.

Then, the TV screen droned to life.

…

The first thing that Zane saw was a date. In the top left corner, the date 14 MARCH was stamped over the video file in blocky white letters. He leaned forward in excitement—he didn't even know what Maya was talking about, but was curious anyway—that turned quickly into bewilderment as her recognized Cole's face in front of the camera. His gray eyes searched the lens in a speculating look, bushy eyebrows ducked over them and hair swept over his forehead. Behind him, the backdrop of a wide, empty room of wooden walls deepened the mystery of the movie. "What are we supposed to do, chuck him over the side of the boat? It's Sensei's nephew. Annoying as he is, I think we'd get our faces slammed into the floor if we did anything to him."

The camera swiveled to face a familiar looking Jay. Zane gasped and pointed. It was Jay! In the movie! How had he done that? He wondered speculatively, but paid more attention.

Jay's severed eyebrow was lifted. Over his body was an excellent outfit of magnificent blue, with a silver half of metal covering his right side. His arm gleamed as he used it to gesture in the air. Zane didn't know Jay had such a cool suit. He'd never worn it before. "Uh, _yeah, _but don't you notice he's always getting us into trouble? Don't you think Sensei's playing favorites here? The kid should've gotten punished, like, _ten punishments ago." _Jay threw his arms up in the air. He looked upset.

The view rotated back to Cole, who had moved across the wooded floor towards a small rectangular window across the wall. The light caught against dust particles floating in the air. "Yeah, but I don't feel like writing a letter to my dad telling him that I got my face beaten in by an old guy's foot. _Or _making up excuses why my head is suddenly facing the other way. 'Sorry, Dad, I fell down the stairs.'" Cole's voice deepened to accentuate him making fun of the pathetic statement.

Jay snorted. He crossed his arms over his chest. "Then let's get rid of him secretly and then lie to Sensei about know, he'll be all"—Jay held his finger beneath his nose like a moustache—"'Where's my nephew?' And then we'll go"—he jumped to the other side, facing the opposite direction as if he were having a conversation with someone—"'Oops, dunno, Sensei, maybe he left or something. You know how evil lords' sons are, always on the move!' Easy. He'll never know!" Jay put his hands on his hips and gave a triumphant laugh.

Cole rolled his eyes and moved away from the window. He was trying not to smile. "That Sensei imitation was totally convincing, by the way." He shook his head. "You're such a dork."

"Hmm? Oh, sorry, I didn't hear you. I was too busy being a convincing dork."

Cole laughed, his voice echoing off the empty walls. Zane stared as the screen went completely black for a couple of seconds. He tried to remember something of that incident, but he hadn't even been in the room when the two were talking about it.

Before Zane could think anymore, the screen picked up again. This time, the date in the corner of the screen was absent.

The image had changed now. It wasn't Cole and Jay locked away in a wooden room, but instead Kai and Jay, both looking somewhere off camera to the right. Kai faced left, and looked over his shoulder towards something; Jay stood across from Kai and let his arms dangle uselessly at his sides. He still wore that silver-and-blue suit that Zane thought was the coolest thing ever. He leaned forward again to watch more deeply.

Kai's suit was completely red. The background behind them was showing yet another long room, but this time, there were punching bags dangling behind them, and the walls were a darker wood than the last time. A tan mat covered the floor completely. "What?" Jay asked, squinting at that off-camera object. A voice from beyond responded in a muffled tone. "Why would he want to know that?"

"What did he just say?" Kai asked, turning to Jay. His eyebrows furrowed. Looking amused, Kai put his hands on his hips and turned halfway back towards the unseen speaker.

"He said that Gayle Gossip was on the phone and wanted to have a chat with you," Jay said. He waggled his eyebrows and grinned crazily. "She wants to have a 'chat' with youuuuuu! He made air quotations, leaning backwards with his face alight._ "Ooooooooooo!" _

Kai shook his head and swung his fist, catching Jay hard in the shoulder. The blue-clad friend of Zane's moved backwards, holding his arm, but was laughing loudly. Zane hadn't ever seen Jay look so carefree before. It was beautiful.

"Kind of like the little 'chat' that you had with Nya the other night?" said a voice, and the camera turned to look at Cole, moving into the room, wearing a deep black suit similar to Kai's. Zane saw a series of pegs jutting out of the floor against the far wall.

Jay defensively crossed his arms. "We were having a lovely conversation."

"That lasted the whole night?" Cole raised his brows dubiously. Jay's face flushed.

"We got carried away."

Kai leaned back his head and laughed once, briskly. "'Carried away'," he repeated. He had a sly smirk attached to his lips. "Nice save."

"Why, thanks."

The voice came suddenly, closer to the camera than the others. Zane jumped at the sound of _himself_. "What exactly did he save?" said Zane's voice monotonically. Jay, Kai, and Cole turned their gazes towards the camera, all looking exactly into it—was Zane the one holding the camera?

The Kai and Cole burst started laughing. "What is so amusing?" asked Zane's voice. He couldn't see himself. The real Zane searched the screen for some proof, but he couldn't find his face anywhere. He felt…blind.

"Do you know what _human reproduction _is, Zane?" Cole asked. He leaned his shoulders forward.

"Of course," Zane responded lightly. "The details are installed into my database."

"O-kay, don't paint _anyone _a picture!" Jay objected, waving his hands in front of him and squeezing shut his eyes. "Besides, _you-know-who _is here, and if he overhears you—I don't really think anybody's given him 'the Talk' yet."

"Who hasn't gotten 'the Talk'?" asked a voice, gravelly and low. The camera moved to face a familiar boy, standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets. His golden hair swept itself to the side with the head motion. It was the face of the boy who had fought Cole last night, nearly killing him. Except this boy, wearing jeans and a green T-shirt, didn't look menacing or angry. He looked friendly, childish, and happy. Zane was startled to see him looking so…innocent. Who was he?

"Uh…" Jay, Cole, and Kai immediately looked uncomfortable. Jay's face reddened. Cole averted his eyes to the floor. Kai clasped both his hands behind his head and gave the boy a sheepish half-smile. Jay responded in a cracked, uneasy voice. He gave a weary laugh. "You know…umm…" He exchanged a glance with Kai. Then he shouted, "SENSEI! LLOYD WANTS TO KNOW WHERE BABIES COME FROM!" And took off from the room, fast as lightning.

The screen went black.

* * *

**Bad ending, I know. **But I'm tired. We'll see more of the Memory Chip next chappie, OK? XD

**Thank you so much to ZaneWalker for the idea of watching the Memory Chip! I love it! More to come! **

**Please review, and go have an AWESOME day/night!**


	27. Chapter 27

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:  
**The Tinkerer's Last Fiddle

Julien wove around the desolate, cramped "laboratory," although arguably it didn't deserve a name as imposing as that. The room didn't pass for the stations that he'd worked in before, ranging in diversity through sizes. It only came with one single, incandescent ray of light that came from the lone bulb dangling in the middle of the room by a rudimentary wire. Underneath was the thinnest, shortest rectangular workbench he'd ever seen. Currently, the display was covered by a bulging, thick white sheet in which hid his most recent project. The walls were lined with short, elementary-built shelves that served as tables lining the perimeter of his "lab," but were more focused on clutter, of things that didn't need to be so strewn. Empty Styrofoam coffee cups, wrappers to fast food packages, receipts, unfulfilled grocery lists, useless sketches, unfinished robot parts, and plenty more unnecessary objects made up the population of the tables. The room was so small, only about seven inches of walk space was endorsed between the center, skinny table and the "Shelves" of Everything Unneeded. Unfortunately for him, there were no windows to peer out of to pass the time. The room was supplied for a rental space, but there were only so many things the company providing it could fund. This didn't even include a toolbox, either. _That, _Julien had to supply himself.

He dragged it along behind him, its weight comforting and familiar as he weaseled an area for his red toolbox to fit into without taking up _too _much space. In the end, giving up the fight too quickly, Julien managed to wrestle it into the corner at an awkward angle. He supposed he'd just have to avoid moving over there, since if he came close, the edge of the toolbox might cut him like last time. The first thing he did was engage in a one-on-one match against the bottom drawer of his toolbox when trying to pry the rusty hinges from its stupor. In the end, Julien managed to get it open, like always, but his fingers were covered in a fine layer of russet-colored dust. He swiped them across his dirtied white lab coat before grabbing the appropriate tool out of the foam casing customized for it inside of the drawer.

Turning towards the table, Julien stared long and hard at the mass underneath the white sheet, yet again debating if he was doing what was right. This he fought with himself every day over, wondering, all the while attaching crucial pieces inside of a newborn panel, if this was a good choice to be making. More than once he'd considered putting down the wrenches and stepping away, calling it quits. But, he realized he _had _to go on. He wouldn't survive mentally if he didn't complete what everyone was calling "The Tinkerer's Last Fiddle."

It took Julien only four seconds to scrounge up the courage to peel back the white coating over his masterpiece-in-progress. He had to step away to admire his work for a moment; he was surprised that, with his mental degrading, he still had the brains to do what he'd been doing for years. It was probably just routine, some subconscious part of him quite used to creating, fixing, and un-creating robots. He'd been doing it since he was younger than young, before he was older than old, and its process had somehow burned itself into his brain.

His work was stark naked. He let the sheet clandestinely cover the lower half of the robot's body. Over the years, he'd become more skilled at perfecting the sculpture of sexual organs. Though his robots had never been built to breed, the new generation he was making would have the ability to do more than any robot ever could. The closest he'd ever come before to actually creating a reproductive system was when he had, out of basic doctrine and examination of the human body in hourly studies, built his beloved daughter, Danielle. But then again, Julien's calculations had been far worse off than he'd believed, and he ended the story having to rip out the makeshift womb because of its constant disruption of Danielle's normal functions. It was easier to create procreative organs within _males, _because their end of the bargain was far easier than the females. In all cases true.

He was unable to stop the familiar face flashing behind his eyelids. Zane. His first ever robot, his first ever live accomplishment. He was so _proud. _Julien twiddled with his Assistive Reformer for a moment more, double checking that it was on the correct setting. Then he moved his hand over his work's wrist, and peeled open the panel.

Needless to say, he'd come a long way in the evolution of inventing robots. His first models were quite unsteady, but Zane had proven to be otherwise. Whereas panels used to take up the whole abdomen, now Julien was able to manipulate the panel into few little buttons, hid inside of the arm rather than the previous location. Though he'd created Zane to never use the restroom—minimal food consumption actually evaporated/worked down the foods into a pasty oil that fueled his ability to function—out of common courtesy, he realized that wasn't the _only _detail he'd left out of his favorite son. Of course, Julien had noticed plenty of mistakes over the years but hadn't felt they were _horrible _mistakes. Rounding back to the subject of human reproduction, Zane was a default model that had never come with the ability to procreate. He also hadn't installed much knowledge _about _human reproduction into the boy's database—oops—but he didn't think Zane ever needed to be told twice. He'd actually programmed him to retain whatever information given _unless _given a _direct order _that the information was faulty, after which his database would respond by removing the incorrect material. If someone had explained the process to his son, Zane had certainly retained it.

Julien thought back to _before _Zane had become a robot, when he and his beautiful, beautiful Carolyne were human. Julien was more than ecstatic that whatever holy creatures watched over them had decided to give the innocence a second chance—or maybe a third. He loved to see his son grow, bleed, have a real heartbeat. It was what any good father wanted. But when he'd started to see Zane regularly when commissioned at Misako's house to help his boy remember his identity and past, he'd started having terrible dreams about Zane and Carolyne that eventually drove him to leave. He hadn't been able to look his son in the eye after every nightmarish slumber he suffered.

He couldn't stop seeing their corpses as they lay moribund in the shadow of passing. Each of them, ready to disappear completely, because of an illness. So young, so beautiful. So majestic and strong-willed. And above all, Zane had loved Carolyne, a display Julien often seen between his daughter and the commoner boy taking refuge in their home. It was all a father could've asked for, a sweet, dedicated young man to take his daughter's hand and guide her way for the rest of her life. That was how Julien had felt when Danielle had announced that she loved someone special. But it hadn't been who Julien was expecting when she admitted that Elomne von Teufel was the eye of her fancy; he was expecting that boy from towns over, whose elder brother constantly caused ruckus over Ninjago, because Danielle had been friends with him for many years. Carolyne was always complaining about how, when Danielle spent evenings with him, she was certain they were up to something that would never be of the spoken word. Julien had never been the objector—it was always his wife, Katherine, who made something of it, albeit normally a small matter. "He's a sweet kid and all," Carolyne had once said, waving her wrench animatedly through the air as she and Julien worked to fix the water pump, "and I'd be okay if one day they got married. I just think they're being…_sneaky _about it."

"What makes you think they're doing something?" Julien had asked. He'd laughed when Carolyne's face pinched.

"Because Danielle is beautiful and Wu is a sweetheart, and they have a history, Dad. You wouldn't understand."

_You wouldn't understand. _Carolyne liked to make a rumpus about that phrase. She used it repeatedly over her parents' heads, claiming that no matter how they tried, they wouldn't ever succeed in understanding things the way teenagers apparently saw. Sometimes it was used as a joke, others…

He hadn't been surprised at all when Carolyne had walked up to him, days before Zane was scheduled to die of Arachnaeus, pale faced and clutching her stomach. He loved his daughters more than anything—by this time, Danielle had already married Elomne and was gone from the household—but he knew Carolyne had done wrong when she started crying. _This _daughter _never _cried. That was when she'd told him that she was pregnant, and more than that, terrified. Julien remembered contemplating ways to tell Zane about his new child without scaring him.

And then he'd died.

Quite tragic.

For that reason, he'd purposely left out the important details of human reproduction in Zane's database. Lapsing back to the present, Julien realized he'd been working and thinking at the same time, and the final touches of his Last Fiddle were completely installed in the panel. He was startled at his own accuracy. After double-checking that he'd connected all wires correctly, and then checking once more, he decided that it was time to let this one go. His fingers pressed for ten seconds against the startup button inside of the mini-panel.

And the Fiddle whirred to life.

"I have created you specifically to help my son, Zane Montgomery." Julien stood over the robot, knowing that the audio in its ears were on. The fingers of his bot twitched to notify him that it was listening. "He needs you to help him remember _everything _he's ever been through; you see, he's had his memory erased, and…I fear that if I don't act now, it'll be too late. Now, I can't go see him anymore; I have to go someplace…better than this earth. But you—you can help him."

The bot made a clicking noise. He raised the white sheet to wrap it around its body, leaving out the arms. "I trust you with this," he said warningly. "I won't be here to stop you from screwing up again." In a small fraction of a second, he saw the legs twitching underneath the cloak of white covering them. After a moment of sitting and waiting for the humming noises to subside, the whirring and clicking to die down, and the chest to begin rising and falling, he took a step back to allow it some space. A vibrational noise started to reverberate through its body, racking it in small hums. Julien cocked his head to listen for sounds of failure, but every noise he heard was beautiful with success.

The eyelids snapped open. Emotionless, false hazel irises stared into the ceiling. And Julien just smiled.

Had he made the right choice, creating his Last Fiddle?

Yes. He thought he did.

* * *

**NEW ANNOUNCEMENT:**

I previously asked everyone if I should extend the NFAN series into 7 books. At the time, that seemed like a reeeallly good idea. but earlier today, I asked myself, "What the CRAP would I do for them after the Great Battle? What could _possibly _happen in NFAN that would not create major issues, that would also become part of the whole 'nightmare' motif and incorperate well?"

Then I realized:

There's no way I could do that.

So. In NFAN there will _**not**_be seven books, but I'm returning the quantity back to the original SIX books in the series.

However...

While NFAN ends after book six...

there _will _be a second NFAN series.

It won't be called "Nightmares for a Ninja," but it'll be like the sequel to the whole NFAN series.(Does that make sense?) It'll be a "NFAN Season 2" deal. EXACTLY like that. Because right now, we're in **NFAN Season 1.4. **(The FOUR being for the FOURTH BOOK in the series:) So there _won't _be any constant nightmares happening about it, but there will be suspense, drama, and intensity so great your pants could fall off. ^-^ Emiko suggested the series title "The Next Generation," but that sounds kind of mainstream, doesn't it? If it sounds like a good title, let me know in a review.** Or if you have any other series title ideas, I want to hear what you can come up with! :) **

**So, **that's my announcement. I just love writing Ninjago FF's too much and the characters even MORE to ever consider stopping. I would just _die. _I couldn't _not. _I can't imagine my life without Ninjago OR NfaN. I'm not obsessed. Just dedicated. :}

**NFAN CONTEST IS STILL IN SESSION! ENTER SOON, GUYS!**

**PLEASE tell me what you think about "NfaN" (under a different name) Season 2, and go have an AWESOME DAY/NIGHT, guys!**

With love and candy and so much baby powder I think I'm gonna sneeze, Kairi


	28. Chapter 28

**CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:  
**Zane  
_Yin_

Back, and forth. Back, and forth. Back, and _forth _these guys went, 'round the clock battling of verbal army dudes clashing descriptors and dissimilar ideas that had their own kicks to 'em. Every type of conversation-starter known to man was used: the Snowball Effect, the Gasping Gallows, the One Man's Trashy Thought, Another Man's Epiphany Treasure. There were more than that, but I didn't feel like coming up with any more creative names for the multiple ways the six of those in the kitchen threw up ideas. Idly, I clung to the corner, praying that it keep me safely from anything they being said in their little powwow of justice. I, really, had nothing to contribute. I knew nothing of anything. Just a girl sipping my tea and dreaming of daisies over here.

Well. Maybe minus the daisies.

It wasn't some strange mood swing that kept me from stepping into the horde. If you knew me, you wouldn't think I'd back down from a free chance to argue and show off any of my Einstein ideas. But I couldn't force myself to move too much. It all hurt anyway.

No one noticed me as I slipped out of the kitchen, every move I made painful enough to bring tears stinging in my eyes. What I needed was more than just a mug of tea and some coos from a mother. The tight breezeway between the kitchen and living room separated me from the debate team within the dining room and the little live-action T.V settings going on in the den. I contemplated skirting up the staircase into peace—it looked like everyone was in one room or the other—when I noticed my brother, lying across the couch on his back, his shirt soaked in pure blood, hand resting on his flat stomach, but his eyes open, expression quiet, as he stared blankly at the small T.V screen. Cole hadn't earned back _everything _from me yet, which is to say, _my trust. _Still, I felt automatic panic bubble into my throat until I remembered what Pretty Princess in the kitchen had said about him. His vampire body would heal him. As usual.

I lingered in the doorway, silent as a breeze, watching him stilly. My father was leaned against the recliner's arm. In that same chocolate-brown leather, a _very pregnant _teenaged girl sat with her hands curled around her belly, watching the screen as empty as anyone else. I hadn't seen her before. In that event, I made the connection that I'd slept in the same bedroom as her. She was that mystery girl in the bunk bed. I couldn't fully see her face, and it took me a while to realize I was too lazy to pry for her attention, so I looked down at the two guys who I _thought _were called Jay and Zane curled across the floor, confounded by the moving images on the screen. (I didn't know which one was which—I'd never met either before.) There was no Kiko in the room, something I thanked the heavens for, because I knew I couldn't stand being near that narcissistic psychobitch any more than I did last night.

I looked back to Cole. He was still watching the screen. I could see his belly rise with every breath, his silver focus waver when the light of the T.V. increased. He looked bored. Unimpressed. I didn't know how else to describe the completely uninterested expression on his face; he just didn't look that into whatever was playing on the television.

It broke my heart and mended it at the same time to see Cole alive. I had spent so many days—er, countless hours—believing that the only person on this Earth who loved me for who I was had been killed. He was alive, but he wasn't…He sided with Psychobitch now. Much of that theory was proven last night, when he'd almost _killed me _to save _her, _who I was almost positive he'd _hated _for the majority of his life. Apparently, we'd missed so much in the world…

Psychobitch and I aren't the best of friends. Hell, we're not even _friends. _Why, I really don't feel like explaining to you right now, but I'm sure Cole's said something about his vampire-becoming once or twice and _maybe _what she's done to me. I don't have the energy to go into huge detail. But I'm sure Pretty Princess will say something about it sooner or later—I caught the way she was staring at me out the corner of her eye. Sizing me up, I reckon. Noticing how _my _facial features precisely match Kiko's. Everything except the height and hair is what makes us unable to be twins. That, and probably the age, but anyone taking a glance at Psychobitch will most likely not think she's eternally seventeen at a first glance. Like I said, she looks like me, and I'm only fifteen.

In any case, I hate her guts, and am completely heartbroken that my brother has finally fallen into her sluttish grasp. She _hurt _me, over and over again in my miserable lifetime, except here he is, being a slutty Original Vampire suck-up. (No pun intended.) It's exactly what Psychobitch wants and it's exactly what he's _giving _her.

In my seething I didn't notice that Cole had detected me staring at him. Which normally is considered virally creepy and slightly pedophilic if you're gleaming your looking balls towards someone. When I snapped back to, I found his eyes had met mine, and partially braced myself for a knife to come flying at my forehead just to end my stupid misery. But all I saw in his gray eyes was a sort of scanning of my face. He was reading me for something, and honestly I had no idea what to do other than stand there like an idiot and stare back. Would I run? Would I wait? Would I smile? Okay, cross off that last one. I don't smile. Not really. A sudden breeze took to raising my gooseflesh, and I watched Cole blink one last time before _he _smiled at me.

"Hi," he mouthed, but no sound came out. I took a deep breath and tensed myself for the blow, but he did something I _really _wasn't anticipating. The guy opened his arms.

Okay…um…If _your _brother tried to kill you because he was siding with a Psychobitch, then mysteriously went Care-Bear on you and wanted to snuggle, would _you _want to hug him? Also consider that you've believed him dead for so long your heart was punched out of your chest. It's like a relief seeing him alive, like a weight is lifted off your body. But then remember he chucked a pointy knife at you to save a Psychobitch who has been out to get you since you first met her.

Would _you _hug him?

"I missed you," he mouthed. After a second, I knew I had read it wrong. It didn't add up to all the other omissions of information that I had. First is _kill, _next is _omigodimissedyoucomehugme. _He'd adopted a hot-n-cold Katy Perry genre of lifestyle. Why would he do that? Was he becoming an un-diagnosed bipolar, like me?

Or had Psychobitch _compelled _him to save her?

Ah. Well. There's your answer.

It's aaallwayys the Psychobitch.

I'd kick her ass for compelling my brother into trying to save her. Suddenly, it made sense; if she had Influenced him using her magical compulsion powers, she'd be able to make him do just that—in the case that she _knew _once I came around she'd be under heavy guard. If she hadn't anticipated my return, she'd be anticipating that there was more danger out there than there was for peace, and having to compel herself a pliable bodyguard would be just as well for her. She could ask all the humans she wanted to protect her, but in the end, none of them would survive their attackers. Normally, Psychobitch was followed by supernatural stalkers. Not human rapists looking for cash. Not that, you know, that never happened. With the way she advertised herself, I was certain she had a couple of them once or twice, but was able to kill them instantly.

After thinking about this, my heart beat faster, and with a small smile of hope I hurled myself at him. I made sure to do it carefully for my own sake. (It freaked out Jay and Zane so badly they jumped/yelped.) My brother was just Psychobitch's slave, but not actually _on her side_. Nothing a little ass-kicking couldn't handle. I could finally put an end to my grieving. I knew as much when I felt his body underneath mine, the solidness of his face as I ran my fingers over his cheeks, touched his neck, his nose, his heartbeat. Cole's face brightened into a smile which actually showed his _teeth, _something he didn't normally do, but did for _me_ that day. To my horror, _I _could feel _tears _in my eyes. I was originally not going to spill them, but seeing his face …they fell in waterfalls down my cheeks. He looked up at me and reached to brush the tears off my face with his thumbs, whispering voicelessly to provide comfort for me.

Sitting on him, I knew I weighed absolutely nothing to him—he always "complained" about how I was light as a feather when he'd give me piggyback rides as a little girl. It was true. I was a little squishy thing. A balloon full of air ready to soar away unless something—someone—kept me grounded. Every day of my life, that had been Cole. When he was gone, all I could do was float. I was never _me. _Never real. I was a hollow; a hollow who held nothing within herself of anything. No hope. No happiness. No smiles, no love. Just hot air: hatred. _Hating _everything never got me anywhere, I knew it, but it gave me a way to distract myself from _feeling _things. When I felt things, I felt _everything. _Every emotion, every painful gallon of whatever it was, came _pouring _on top of me to the point where I could never breathe. I couldn't function. Tired of being bullied by my own emotions, I focused on one that was easy to entertain and got me through every day: _hate. _I put everything off with hate. If I felt anything else, I would die under the stress of it. I couldn't do it anymore. If that made me weak, then _fine, _it made me weak, but—living in a world where it was like I didn't exist made you realize your self-worth was close to nothing. Hate was all I could do right. Everything else I—I _sucked _at. I sucked at being a person.

But hate. Hate is balanced by love. If I began to love people, do you think I could chase away my hate? I know hating is wrong; I hate that I hate. But I just…can't…_stop _hating. I don't know any other way to live.

_But you know someone that does. _

I didn't recognize the voice in my head. It wasn't mine. A voice that had the potential to be a male or a female, but didn't have just _one _of those factors. It jolted me into physically jumping, which freaked Cole out, which made me notice that I had an audience of like seven people—that's probably over-exaggerating—watching me like creeps. The first thing I felt was hate to aim it at them, to tell them to put their eyeballs back in their peepholes, but then…I hate that I hate. How can I love when all I do is hate?

So I did the next best thing and temporarily ignored them. I put off the thoughts of that voice in my head and turned to looking at Cole. He smiled again and reached for my wrists. "Oh, Seiko," he barely whispered, so much that I had to strain to hear him. "Look at you. You look so different. So different…"

Great. More tears came falling out of my eyes. I probably looked like a snot-filled watermill and _completely _unattractive. If I did, Cole didn't give a crap, and finally his hands made their way to my face, where he held my cheeks and looked at me tenderly. No hate. No hate. He didn't hate me. I closed my eyes as his thumbs brushed across my cheeks like windshield wipers. Not once did the look on his face change. "Come here," he whispered, and pulled me towards him.

I hid in Cole's throat. Bawling, might I add. He kept his arms around me and held me tightly against him. He dropped periodic kisses into my hair, onto my forehead, my eyelids. I felt him start to move me to the side so I could lay on the ratty couch beside him, but too late did I realize the dangers of that.

I cried out in pain when my side laid on the cushions. I jumped up immediately to take that pain away, but I could feel it hurting worse. Cole's expression turned freaked out. "Seiko?" he whispered. He reached for me. My tears now weren't for him, but for me. I batted away his hands quickly.

"I'm fine," I lied. "Just really sore."

Cole cocked his head. I met his eyes full on. Looking away normally signaled you were a Big Fat Liar, and I didn't want him getting mad at me. Not today. Cole looked skeptical. "If you're hurt—"

"I know it isn't much," interrupted a voice loudly, shaking me from our conversation to turn around on the couch, "but it's all I could manage. The hospitals are _totally _under watch—"

I felt my fists tighten. Maya stopped in the doorway. Her long, blood hair was curled, her bangs pointing down her _stupid _nose, wearing a low-cut top underneath a stupid jean jacket over her leggings and heels. She didn't look surprised to see me, but raised a thin eyebrow anyway. I, on the other hand, glared at her. You know that thing I said earlier, that I hate to hate? I don't know if I was being completely honest about that…

"I knew you'd be in here sooner or later, Psycho Seiko," Maya commented. I cringed—barely—at the use of my old nickname. _Where did she hear that?! _I thought. Gritting my teeth, I prepared to launch myself at her, until the reflexive pain in my skin made me stop. Maya weighed my reaction by leaning back slightly. Her red lips pursed into an amused smile, and she made my skin crawl, her black eyes rolling over me. She knew she could take me down—she could smell my injury. She had to. Why else would she be…

"What are _you _doing here?" I snapped.

Maya didn't blink. Instead, she hefted something in her hand, eyeballing it. "Well, Cole needs more than just rotten Bambi blood, and he's obviously not fit to go hunt it for himself." She smiled hatefully at me. "So, like the nice friend I am, I made a trip to the Care Center down the road and plucked a couple of blood bags. Fresh out of the blood drive." She waved one for me to see. It was one of those bags you see dangling from a stand when you're in the hospital and they've got an IV thing stuck into you. The dark red liquid sloshed. It stuck to every corner of the bag, with a label stretched across the middle. I felt my legs start to get weak even though I wasn't standing. _That was inside of somebody, _I thought. I was ready to vomit.

It didn't show much strength in me as a person when my hand clapped over my mouth. I watched Maya smile again. "Yum, yum," she smiled, and showed me her fangs. "Don't you just _love _the taste of someone else's blood as it pours down your throat, stains your chin, your lips, tasting like—"

"That's enough," Cole growled as loudly as he could. He turned to me. "Seiko—"

"No, no, I got it, I got it—evacuate. I know. I, um, I'll go…" I stood up, wobbly. I knew I was going to fall the second my legs started to stumble. _Oh, god, _I thought, _I'm gonna crash worse than a plane. _My knees buckled.

A hand grabbed me before I could fall.

I looked up. Zane's careful eyes watched me. "Here," he said softly. His hands, gentle as little butterfly wings skirting up my elbows, clasped my joint and lifted me, then curled around my hands. I tilted my head to look back at him. This was the second time today that I'd been saved by Zane…but this time, it was the real one. At least, I hoped it was. Zane's friendly smile guided me alongside his hands, curled around mine, as he gently steered me towards the door. I started to dig in my heels when he brought me close to Psychobitch, but she slipped out of the way. I caught the low _hiss _between her teeth when I passed her. My legs still felt numb, and Zane's hand was _freezing. _It was somehow…comforting.

I thought he'd take me into the kitchen, but he turned to the right, pulling me up the stairs with his one hand wrapped coldly around mine. "Come on," he urged softly. The stairs creaked under our weight. I took tiny shuffles up each one of the slender steps. I had always been used to Cole's insatiable vampirism, but lately, blood had been making me really queasy. Like he was voicing my thoughts, Zane turned his head to say over his shoulder softly, "I don't like watching him drink, either. It makes my stomach roll."

I nodded. "I know the feeling," I offered shakily, with a breathless laugh.

The top of the stairs was pulled smack dab into the middle of the top floor. Around was a whole bunch of doorways, but behind the staircase—corralled by railings on all three sides and a gate where you entered—was an open den, extremely small but dominated by beanbags and a tiny T.V. Shelves were stacked with video games and movies and books and stupid things I knew belonged to Snickerdoodles. The wall was printed with framed pictures of Misako, Garma-Damon, and Lloyd, plus a few others where it looked like he was a little kid in. I wanted to see them, but Zane pulled me elsewhere, to a room with a closed white door. Zane opened it and waved me inside. My eyebrows furrowed when I realized it was a bathroom. "What exactly…"

He shut the door behind me and locked it. I whirled. There wasn't a window in here, just a shower, a toilet, a sink, and a closet. My senses turned sharp as I sensed danger, and, backing away, I saw that Zane was completely oblivious to it. He innocently smiled at me. Was this a trick? What was he doing? "Why did you bring me in here?" I barked. Zane's face collapsed.

"I sense you are tense. I don't mean to worry you, Miss Seiko." He reached out a hand. I stared at it. "I just want to see your wounds."

I froze. After a pause, I snapped, "What makes you think I have wounds?"

Zane gave me a _surely-you-must-be-joking _look. He outstretched his hand further, this time testing his limits by taking a slow step forward, as if he were dealing with a caged animal. Testily, I took a step back, and hit the wall. Great. Now, I had no _frakin' _way out—I was going to _die _in here—

Zane's cool hand touched my cheek. Instantly, I felt something get sucked out of me. It was like all my aches dimmed to a numb sparkle in the distance, a low tune humming in the background. It made my heart fluctuate. I stared up at his icy blue irises and found myself completely out of breath. _Zane…_

He smiled at me, softly. "There," he murmured. "Now, let me fully heal you. I wish to see your wounds." When I opened my mouth to protest, he held up a finger. "Arguing will get you nowhere. I can sense you are hurting. It's because of what happened outside, isn't it?" His expression turned melancholy, empathetic. My heartbeat raced in my chest. It forced me to flatten against the wall, like he was going to _hurt _me, but I knew deep in my soul that he wouldn't. "Let me help you, please." He didn't say it forcefully. I looked at his face again. Childish, open, wide-eyed, and happy, happy beyond all doubt. What did he have that made him so happy? Why was he so willing to help _me, _who he didn't even know? I knew that _I _would _never _do that for a stranger. Ever.

_You and he are different, _said that strange voice in my head again. I flinched. _He loves everyone. You could learn a thing or two from him. _

This voice in my head—I somehow knew that with every word, it was more right than I was. I hated feeling defeated, but there was no other way to describe the sense of _understanding _that came over me. I took a deep breath. I had always had a hard time accepting help; I thought that if I needed help, then I was weak. But it turns out I was weakanyway without even _getting _help. Zane would help me. He _could _help me. And I couldn't refuse help anymore.

I grabbed the thick material of Damon's sweatshirt over my stomach. Zane looked down. "The pain is there?" He asked. He reached for it.

"Everywhere," I said after a while.

Zane's fingers curled around the sweatshirt. _He means you no harm, nor anything you may be thinking he does, _said that voice. _Zane is innocent. He does not understand anything sexual. You will be fine. _

I knew it before it even told me. My heart rapidly floundered like a dying fish, forcing me to close my eyes shut. Did I ever mention how _glad _I was that I couldn't blush anymore? The material of Damon's sweatshirt dragged upwards until it was completely gone, and with a soft thud I heard it fall away. I kept my eyes closed, knowing what Zane would see, and I was scared to look at it myself. His sharp intake of breath told me he wasn't expecting it, either.

"My word," he breathed. I pressed my lips together to stop a whimper.

Caroline's whip had done more than just strangle like a constricting snake. I'd noticed it hurt all the way back to the house, but when Misako had given me clothes to change into, I'd actually _seen _the real damage it had done. I'd had to tear off the other shirt with terrible difficulty. The whip had seemed especially pointy, but only when I was completely free of it did I realize that there was a reason for that. The spines of the whip had injected small, tooth-like thorns into my skin. That was why it was so hard to get the whip off. Ripping off the whip had ripped off the spines _from _the whip, and the spines had stuck so badly into my skin that it hurt to move. They were stuck inside of me like thorns of a rose. When I had last looked, they'd been full to the top of thick green liquid.

Now, when I peeked, they were only half full.

Zane looked up at me, his own expression painful. The thorns were wound all the way around my abdomen. Around each, a pucker of white skin curled, and Zane reached forward to prod one with a thin fingertip. My whole body hurt in protest.

I cried out. He retracted his hand. "If I rip them out, it would be painful, but quick. If I go get help, Danielle will know what to do."

"_No," _I gasped, but he softly smiled. His hand gently moved across my forehead, and _guess what he did. _Moved my _stupid _bangs. I quickly snapped my head so he couldn't see my eye, but he tilted his chin. "Why do you hide?" he asked me gently. I looked up at him strangely. "You are hiding behind them."

"Hiding is all I know how to do," I gasped, breathless.

Zane tilted his chin again. He smiled. "I will change that," he promised. Then, he stepped away to point at the toilet seat. "Sit. I will get help. I can take some of the pain away, but to remove these terrible pricklies, I cannot do alone."

"Terrible pricklies," I repeated. A humorless laugh tumbled out my throat. "I like it."

Zane smiled. So innocent, friendly. I never had been that way. As I moved to sit, trying not to cry out, he placed his fingertips across my cheek. I looked up at him, startled at the contact. "I will help you get better," he promised softly, in an almost child-like voice. "I mean it. Not just to fix the terrible pricklies. But I will fix _all_ of you_, _too."

"What does that mean?" I managed to ask in a whisper.

Zane looked at me, and he smiled again. _So much smiling, _I thought. _His face has to hurt. _"Every day, your heart beats, and when it beats, it hurts," he said. "You're not happy. I will help you."

"Why?" I asked, incredulous. _How did he know that?_

"Why not?" Zane countered softly. "Everyone deserves to be happy, Miss Seiko. Even you." He turned away, walking towards the door at a slow, measured pace. I wondered why he looked so calm. I watched him go, sad that he wasn't near me anymore, because I could feel his absence like I could feel it when I wasn't near Snickerdoodles. Cupcakes was the only person who ever made me feel his presence whenever he was in the same room as I was, who I knew was standing there when I wasn't looking. But I felt that with Zane, too. When he was there, I could have closed my eyes and known _exactly _where he was. Who _was _he to me? Zane opened the door. But before he left, he turned to me, giving me another smile. So. Many. Smiles. I'd never smiled as much as he was in my entire life. "And Seiko? I think you look much prettier without your bangs," he said quietly. Then he moved out the door, and he was gone, and I felt him gone long after he'd closed the door softly behind him. There was only the reminder of my heartbeat that he was there, drumming loud, and beautiful, and fast, and alive. It throbbed in my ears and left me sinking backwards against the wall, my face warm, my body ringing, with every single nerve in my body singing a song I'd never heard before in my life, but loved.

* * *

**Please review! **I know its been a long update, but Narumi (who we've started calling Ru!) Has been taking up my time, as long as classes and keeping up with my favorite Sensei. I've known him since I was seven. He's one of my favorite people in the world. XD

**Go have an AWESOME DAY/NIGHT! **And we'll see you right back here next time!

**PS- **does anyone **recognize** the green liquid? *mischevous*

~Kairi


	29. Chapter 29

**CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:  
**Real or Not Real?  
_~YANG_

Zane came trotting in at the wrong time with the wrong news. Even before he got in there, I somehow knew something had gone awry and I was going to have to mop up some mess that I didn't want to. Regardless of if it was bad or not, though, he had this smile on his face as though he was trying to make sure that everyone was happy before he dropped the bomb on us. Mom had just actually said we should get packing for the monastery because we were already wasting daylight—daylight we _couldn't _be seen in. By then, Bokuyo had already finger pointed Zane out and said that we had a visitor, and I was left to face the awful reality that came with the stinging of my Mind's Eye.

I had noticed when Seiko left, even though I hadn't said anything. Maybe, looking back on it, I should have. I found Zane hovering awkwardly, twiddling his fingers and queasily smiling, and that's when I got the picture that he was nervous. Nervous not because of what was happening or whatever, but because of Danielle. (Later on I found out that last part, to my horror, finding my friend to think he was in love with my…mother...) No one else heard the awful whispering that sounded like it was coming from behind my ear and in my head both at once, being a harbinger of death to me once more. "Hello," he squeaked. "Um. I hate to bother you, but…there's been an issue."

"About what?" asked Kai. But I had already gotten the memo.

Sometimes you really learn to love the mysterious talking tattoos on the back of your hand that don't come off with globs of _Olay _or thousands of _Clorox _wipes.

I moved quickly past Zane. He diverged in the hallway to avoid being hit, after which I practically died flying into the wall. Wouldn't that have been a dumb way for the Green Ninja to die? According to Bokuyo, though, my death had other plans I didn't exactly approve of. I shoved aside all situations of such that would make me vomit my empty stomach and took the steps two at a time, able to hear the footsteps of others behind me. Danielle's voice carried: "_No, you all stay behind. If we all swarm her, we'll scare her. I'll go." _To that, I wanted to turn to tell her she was sorely mistaken. I knew Seiko was no little puppy cowering in the corner. She would be dealing with this in an extremely Seiko-like way: by being tough and kicking danger in the nuts. If we all appeared in her midst, yeah, probably, she'd be a little overwhelmed, but Seiko wouldn't be scared. Danielle didn't know Seiko.

_Do you? _I asked myself as I shoved open the bathroom door. Did I know Seiko? Or did I know that person who she pretended to be?

That question, I found, would be answered a _little _too soon. I moved into the florescent bathed, linoleum tiled, robin's egg bathroom and stepped right into what felt like the Bates Motel itself.

…

**_Yin_**

_She'd appeared out of nowhere. _

Twenty seconds after Zane was gone, she'd appeared. Appeared out of—of _nowhere _just—just _appeared—_and I was so scared—her face, so mangled, it was falling apart—her skin, falling off of half her face—she was a—a _zombie—_smiling, like a freak—holding out her hand and moving towards me—her jerky motions, like a violin chord being strung wrong—like a marionette—held out her hand and _smiled—_"Hello, my darling"—she'd been dead, oh, god, I could _smell _her—she'd been dead for so many years—skin gray, wrinkled—eyes sunken in, like bruises—her cheeks were hollow—like wet paper towels, sagging off her face, about to break but not quite broken yet—she backed me into a corner, holding out her hand—her dress was—was dirty with soil—her teeth were yellow, black, some missing—her wedding ring was practically _slipping _off her bony finger—her hair—oh, my lord, her hair—her hair was falling out by the clumps—she was _decomposing right in front of me_—have to stop her—have to make it go away—backed into a corner, can't get out—NEED TO ELIMINATE THE ISSUE HERE—_kill it_—coming towards me—it needs to stop—zombie—_kill—kill—need to kill it—_save myself—why is it coming for me? Why is she still here?—what does she want?—"Don't look so scared of Mommy, Seiko"—GO, AWAY—SHOOO—_kill_—she _reeks _of death—_kill it_—"Why do you keep backing away, my dear? What's wrong? It's just Mommy!"—_go away—_monster, it's a monster—just like Daddy—_tick, tock, tick, tock—_hissss—kill it, kill it, killitkillitkillit_killitkillitkillitkillitkillitkillitkillitkillit—_

I grabbed the empty toilet paper holder and yanked it roughly off the wall. With all my strength, it tore with a loud sound of bending metal, screeching throughout the room. The zombie standing before me, wearing my mother's appearance like a second skin, smiled again, that ripped half of her face revealing cold, hard yellowed skull, bugs crawling across her blank eyeball, their movements audible. I've never been a fan of insects, but being able to _hear _them was bad freaking manners. "What are you doing?" the creature asked in a strange voice, like it was confused. At _doing, _the jaw unhinged and hung limply dangled, half fallen out of the missing section of skin, suspended by what was left. I gagged. The smell of death overwhelmed me. My hand, raised over my head, shook with the metal rod clutched in my hand. _Kill, _whispered a familiar instinct in my head.

At that moment, almost too quick for me to notice, the door was thrown open, and Pretty Princess stood there, hand outstretched in fear. My mother's zombie turned, the perfect moment of weakness, while Pretty Princess distracted her. "_No! _Lloyd, _don't, _she's _hallucinating—"_

"Better you die than I," I said in a low voice.

And I drove the metal dowel straight through the creature's stomach with everything I had.

My hand drove the dowel deeper into the seemingly easy passage of the monster's stomach. Blood splurted, warm around my fingers, sticking me to the rod before I yanked it out quickly. _How does she have blood when she's been dead? _I thought, panting heavily as her form collapsed across the floor with a quiet gasp of disbelief. I looked down at her, hoping to see that I had slain the demon of my past, but froze into my tracks in horror. Where she had stood, dripping ichor and death, no longer lingered my mother's zombie from beyond the grave.

I dropped the rod. My bloodied hands flew to my mouth in horror. What had I _done?! _What the hell had I _done?! _I swear, the zombie—she'd been right there, but—that wasn't a zombie, that was—"Oh, my god, _Lloyd!" _I shrieked. I dropped to the floor beside him. Pretty Princess had already beat me there to help him, but more than pained, he looked like he was dazed. The front of his shirt instantly began to soak in a rose formation of blood across his flat stomach. Princess ripped up the front of his shirt when the door got kicked open again, and this time, Kai entered. He cried out when he saw this—this _scene _I'd created. Tears fell quickly down my face when I stared at what I'd just done. I'd stabbed Lloyd. _Lloyd. _Out of my own _insanity. _His face was more wide and impressed, rather than the gasping pain I'd expect him to feel, the shock he must've been entertaining. "Lloyd!" I gasped, uncontrollably starting to hiccup. I reached for him. Groping the air. Guilt lathered my body in shaking sobs, in horrified cries. I'd tried to kill the monster, but instead, I had just _become _the monster. I was a monster. How could I do this? How could I live in a world where the only friend I'd ever had was _dead, _and all because I'd _killed _him? How could I live in this world where he didn't exist…because of _me?! _

Lloyd blinked. He looked unfazed. Death, it seemed, did not acquaint him. "I'm so so-rry! I don't—I don't know—she was standing right there—she was—oh, god, I am _so _sor—but she was—sorry—I'm sorry—I was—she—zombie—"

Kai passed Princess a wet rag, like she asked. Blood stained all of Lloyd's abdomen, his belly, his skin that I'd just ruined. I was a monster. A _monster. _She pressed it against his stomach and looked at me. Everything in this room seemed too bright for me to look at. "Calm down," she commanded calmly.

"Calm _down? _I just—I just stabbed—"

"I'm gonna be fine," Lloyd said like he hadn't even gotten hurt. I looked down at him. He raised an eyebrow coolly at me. "Really. You don't need to freak out. I mean, all you did was rob me of my life because you're stupid, that's all. I guess I'll be paying for your insanity, and the fact that you just killed me should be your one-way ticket to getting back in a mental hospital, huh?" he smiled. It sent shivers up my spine, that fox smile. "Oh, well. I mean, there's always resurrection…if you like that sort of thing…Maybe I'll be the zombie next time too. So you can stab me again. Or maybe I should just let you live with the fact that you murdered the Green Ninja before Kaos could. Because you're a _monster. _A cold blooded, ravenous, good for nothing _bitch _who deserves to be locked in a cell. You don't deserve life." His smile had quickly turned into a hateful grimace, his face leering at me underneath a curled lip. "You deserve to die _painfully—"_

"Seiko?"

I shrieked. My back slammed against the wall, cold, solid behind me. Before me, the peculiar sight of Lloyd bleeding his life out, of Pretty Princess mending his wounds silently, was absent, leaving the white tile clean and empty of any stray hemoglobin. I stared into the empty floor in front of me. There was no scene of a crime, of my heartbreak unfolding before me. There was nothing but empty air, and the sight of the bathroom door creaking wide. The voice I'd heard sounded nothing of the malicious content it had held a second before it said my name. I looked up. He was outlined by the hallway light, but he was alive. Standing above me. Staring. Not quite comprehending what I was doing on the floor…

"Are you okay? Hey, let me help you." Lloyd held out his hand, his face alive, unscathed. He looked sympathetic. "Come on."

My heart jerked. "How—how do I know you're real?" I gasped. I pushed myself further against the wall, heart thundering. Lloyd slowly retracted his hand and gained a confused expression. _"How do I know you're real?" _I repeated, more vigorous this time.

"Um…" Lloyd rubbed the back of his head. He particularly tried to look anywhere but at me. "Look, I don't…"

"Get away. What if I hurt you again? I don't want to do that. It would mean I was a monster, and—I'm not a monster. I can't be. If I was…I would've killed you, kill and I don't want to be a monster. Right? I'm not a monster? I'm not crazy. Tell me I'm not crazy." My quick babble made Lloyd's face twist confusedly more. He looked uncomfortable, cheeks red. And worse, he didn't answer. "I can't—I can't hurt you again. I don't know what I'd do withou—How do I know you're real, Lloyd? How do I know that you're not a fake?"

Lloyd itched his head and looked away. I breathed heavily. I was hallucinating. He couldn't be real. No way. His cheeks flamed, and he looked like an embarrassed little kid, shifting feet. "I really wasn't expecting this, but, um…you're sitting there in your bra, and, um, I have no idea how to react to this…"

Momentarily startled out of my insane blur, I stared at him. What had he just said? "My…?" I looked down and gasped. _"OHMYFRAKINGOD! _GET OUT OF HERE! WHAT ARE YOU _DOING?! _GET OUT!" I grabbed a toothbrush off the sink and chucked it at him. "GOSH! GET OUT OF HERE! PERVERT! GET! SHOO!" It bounced harmlessly off, and he held up his arm in defense when I threw more toiletries at him.

"Ow! I'm going! Stop! _Ow! _Was throwing the toothpaste necessary? _Ow! _Seiko! That's my face!" With his commentary, Lloyd had disappeared out the door, but I was still mortified. I yanked a towel off the rack beside the mirror and clutched it to my chest. I was losing it. God. He'd seen me like this, what, _twice _now? This had _better _not become a habit with him. I breathed heavily out of adrenaline. Adrenaline, fear, and good old fashioned horrification. What was happening to me?

The door opened again, and this time, it was Pretty Princess who entered. She stood emotionless in the doorway. "I am here to help you," she said emptily. I'd actually forgotten the needles in my body. It was pretty much the culprit of why I had no shirt on and was therefore scarred for the rest of my life, but whatever. Danielle moved closer to me, unfazed by my nakedness, and bent closer to examine a spine. I looked down at them, unsure whether I should be afraid or not that they were empty of any green liquid. What were they? Had _they _done this to me?

_How can you hide from the devil if you don't know what he looks like?_

I thought about it when Dani moved her finger across a terrible prickly. I looked at her manicured fingernail and frowned. How _do _you hide from him? I wondered. Then I noticed her hand again.

No manicure.

Just a long, greasy black claw.

"You can't," said a low, Darth Vader impersonating voice. I raised my face, but a large black hand, its skin made of scales and greasy excretions, clamped down over my face. Talons curled into my hair like snakes, shoved me downwards. My body was forced to hit the tile with a loud _thud._ I'd posed that question out loud. I gave a cry. "I told you that I would return for you," it hissed, different now. It sounded like a smoker, someone who didn't have enough air, gasping constantly to keep themselves alive. "And I can keep the promise that I will. Just…as soon…as you find me that _goddamn key!" _Claws curled and pressed brutishly against my stomach. The screams I gave were forced out of me under the scaly, thick, calloused foot, heel digging into my abdomen and forcing the spines inwards. "It started with a spider for that little _brat _and I can assure you it will start with a spider for you, too!" I felt a million creatures crawling across me that I couldn't see, my face hidden under a scaly hand. I writhed. Tiny feet of insects crept across me at quick paces, diving across every part of me, tickling and scaring me all at once. The hand pressed against my mouth. I couldn't scream, and I couldn't see, and I wasn't going to be able to breathe for much longer. I was going to die with bugs already crawling on top of me. "I'm unstoppable, little girl! You can't _escape _me. You don't even know what I _look _like."

"But I do!" cried a tiny, tiny voice. Maybe it was some kind of subconscious thing or something, but I recognized it instantly, and even though it freaked me out, I started to sob. The creature gave a grunt of surprise. "I'll save you, Mommy!" Bokuyo's little voice transformed with the ruffle of flapping wings and the loud caw of a crow's screech. I don't think I'd ever be happier to hear him. The bird's wail turned murderous. The creature cried out. Stumbling back, its grip on me disappeared as it stepped backward. I caught sight of a black scaled creature, a long, crocodile tail in black, and a cloak. Those arms I'd seen in the river of the Underworld were attached to the very clawed hands. I sat upwards and, ignoring the pain, launched myself forward to help Bokuyo attack. His talons dug into the creature. It struggled to maintain a hide on its face, on its identity. My foot collided with the thing's stomach. It grunted. Bokuyo's large wings slapped against its hood. The creature howled. He grabbed into the air, his claws swinging. To my horror, they collided with Bokuyo's wings. I shouted and reached for him, but he was held, squawking and flailing above my head. _Damn me for being so small. _I reached, reached, reached—

A cry of pain came from the bird as the deafening _snap _of its neck rumbled into the air.

The crow fell in a heap across the floor at my feet.

And a piece of me died with it.

"And so you see, my dear," whispered the creature's voice in my ear as I stared numbly down at Bokuyo's crooked body, disbelieving. Its breath tickled my ear. "I can make you see whatever I _want _you to see. Murdering your friends…your father's death…your friend's…your son's. Your worst fears will come true. But as long as you bring me that _map"—_he hissed the word, spitting saliva across my cheek—"I will mean you no harm…and what was it you said? 'Better you die than I'? Do you still believe that, love?" the creature laughed. I stared at Bokuyo. _He'd only been trying to help. _"Tick, tock, tick, tock. _Find. Me. That. Map." _

And then he was gone.

"Mommy?"

I whirled. Bokuyo hovered in the doorway, with Danielle, Kai, and Lou standing before me, looking frightened. They all looked unsure, their eyes wide, their faces pale white. And they stared at the wall behind me.

Was this real? I looked at the toothpaste and toothbrush on the floor, the bar of soap, a cup. I'd thrown all those things at Lloyd, and he wasn't here. Was that part real? Was this real? How could I know?

Bokuyo struggled past Kai to run towards me. "Mommy!" He gasped, and this time, I opened my arms. I lifted him and buried my face in his sweet shoulder. _Bokuyo. _Was he real? He smelled real. He felt real, his fingers twisting into my hair, grabbing fistfuls and clumps. My tears soaked his skin. He was alive. I could feel his heartbeat underneath mine, his little legs wrapped around my waist. He had to be real. …Was he?

"Mommy," he whispered, tugging on my hair. "Why did you write that?"

My legs wobbled, and I breathed in my snot before lifting my face. I looked at him. He looked sincere. Real. Was it? "Write what?" I asked, dazedly. My voice was crumpled from stress. Bokuyo raised a tiny hand and pointed over my shoulder. Feeling my eyebrows furrow, holding him tightly in my arms, I turned slowly around. I was afraid that if I let him go, he would disappear. And I wasn't going to do that. I couldn't let him disappear.

I looked up at the wall before me and stared, open mouthed. That was all I could do for at least five minutes before I started feeling ill, before I started to cry again. Before I started to unfreeze. _Why me? Why do this to me?_

He had written across the wall in what looked like glistening, fresh blood.

_Find it, or pay the price. The Tinkerer will go first. Then who's next? _

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**_PLEASE REVIEW AND GO HAVE AN AWESOME DAY/NIGHT!_**


	30. Chapter 30

**EdgeChronicles01: **The "Devil" that Kaos calls himself isn't actually THE devil. He's just really scary. XD So no. He is not the king of the underworld. And the reason that Julien is at risk will play out later as the story goes on! XD I appreciate your speculation! It means you read carefully! Thank you!

**WARNING TO ALL READERS: **filler chappie.

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**CHAPTER THIRTY:  
**King or No King

Noel skimmed his fingers across the waters. Under his breath he hummed the lullaby that his mother used to serenade him with as a child. It was the only noise throughout the entire mangled wood. His deep hums were all but the wind's company, for the gusto had gone silent as the suns began to crest into disheartened sleep. Noel planned to wait out for as long as time would allow him with the white grass as his company, the sun's heat as his blanket. No matter what the elements brought him, he would stay for his company.

He didn't have to wait long.

"I see you've finally decided to join me," he said when he heard the break of water's surface. Noel didn't bother to sit up. He'd stretched himself across the bank, his arms positioned behind his head leisurely. The sound of a slow, drawn out moan didn't fail to happen.

"What are you doing here?" grunted the breathless voice. Noel smiled. Not of the happiness factor, more contributing to his nasty character. He had to keep up the dark prince charade for a while longer. Just until he had committed enough crimes and selfish acts that brought him more than just the Underworld's throne: the human plane, too. He ran his hands over the flat abdomen of his uniform, plated by yellow metal.

"Can't I enjoy a peaceful afternoon in my kingdom without being accused of otherwise?" He asked, twisting his ankles around each other.

"Harrrumph." The creature grunted again. He saw the black mass move around the corner of his eye, not enough to be completely seen, but to be acknowledged. The darkened shadow sledged water. Noel busied himself careening the ties of his cloak. "I expect you want something."

"Posh!" denied Noel. He batted his hand into the air. "Is it so difficult to believe that I am here to visit a friend?"

"I hardly consider us friends," scoffed the ragged voice.

"I do!"

"You're a naïve, fickle child," spat the creature, after which it coughed. "You have no friends other than those you believe you attain."

"Hm," Noel examined the ties absentmindedly, deliberately making the dramatic tension. "Pity. And I actually came here to tell you that you've been replaced."

"Oh, goody. Now that the secret is out, go bother some other numbskull."

"Not as my _partner in crime, _you imbecile, though I do enjoy it when you unintentionally reference yourself as a _numbskull." _Noel sat up now. His back was caked with dirt and white grass. He readjusted the cuff of his glove. "I meant that on earth your little _army _of Dancers has now been…_adopted." _

"What are you talking about?" snarled the creature. Noel proudly admitted he had caught its attention.

"It seems you babied yourself a squadron of followers," Noel explained. He smiled at his hands. "Now, they turn to whom they think can lead and, well, I must admit, his tactics are _far _better than yours were, though it appears all you shadow-crawlers find the idea of a _Shadow Key _fairly entertaining." He turned his head to look towards the thick mass that bobbed in the corner of his vision, but the second he moved, it ducked under water, refusing to be seen. He sighed. "This one seems more promising. His goals are more…_extensive." _

"WHO IS IT?" growled the raspy voice.

Noel grinned. "Now, this is more of a _secret; _I only tell my friends."

A thick, meaty black hand flew out of the water. Faster than Noel could've perceived it, it clasped around his wrist. Long black claws curled around his arm. _"Tell me, _or so Elathan help me, I will _slice _you—"

"I fear you not," Noel said calmly. He looked into the murky waters, searching for a face, but as normal it was hidden. "For I am the only danger that _you _should know, Eloquim. The _only _fear…well, that, and Kaos the Deadly."

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**Yesh. :3 Like I said. Major filler. Anyways. Go have an AWESOME day/night! **


	31. Chapter 31

**A/N:**

Ru got her first teddy bear today, and it reminded me a lot of _my _childhood friend, Shaggy. I dug him out of the closet, desperately looking for whom I loved as a little girl. When I found him, he looked sad, but his black bead eyes brightened when he saw me. I sat there for a while just thinking about all the adventures and fun we had together, and memory lane gaped before me. These experiences are the foundation of this chapter. I hope that everyone has had that childhood friend who brought them through the thick and thin like my Teddy Bear, Shaggy, and that if you still have them, give them a smile and say, "Thanks for everything."

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**CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:  
**I Know  
_Yang_

Rikku explained it to me like this: we drive in a system. No one had a stalker van to lend the plenty of us. Each assigned cluster took a separate car with less than exceeding amounts of passengers inside and would take different routes across Ninjago towards the monastery. Coordinates were assigned into multiple GPS screens installed into everyone's cars; all groups would leave at different intervals. I didn't get why we were still using this system when obviously we were being watched, but I wasn't in a position to argue. Before I had come in, everyone clearly had a specific plan, and I didn't want to disrespect their ideals. After explaining this to me in the middle of the living room, overpopulated with people, Rikku commanded everyone in a loud voice to begin gathering their things _quickly_. Then he sent me up the staircase to get my own stuff.

I didn't need to be told, but people around here never failed to treat me like a child. Maybe it was my round face. Somehow, it had to invite in the thought that I couldn't think on my own or something. In the end I abandoned thoughts like that for a more practical consideration: what was I going to bring to the monastery? I still had this big black suitcase in my closet that Dad had loaned me after I finally returned home this year following the Overlord's defeat. I planned on using that to lug my stuff around, although what I would bring with me I had no clue.

After passing the bathroom upstairs on my way to my bedroom, its doors shut tightly, locking inside Danielle, Mom, and, um, _Seiko _in some kind of silent message that I was _not _allowed in there, I pushed into the bedroom I would be abandoning yet again. This could be how I would spend the rest of my life, running from people all the time. I'd shown my room so little love that I hadn't bothered to pick up my things; now I wouldn't have the time to do spring cleaning. The suitcase was where I left it, leaned against the wall of my closet. It was hidden beside two small cardboard boxes. Boxes that had, inside, memories of my time as a ninja. Did I have time to look in them? There was a heavy chance I wouldn't be coming back here. The thought left a hard lump sitting in my throat. I knew it may be better for me not to think that—I might give myself a panic attack—and turned to my dresser. I started chucking stuff in by the garments. I didn't have time to hand-pick every outfit I was going to wear while I was gone; moving quickly would give me time to run back downstairs and measure what exactly was happening. I pulled what I could off the hangers in my closet and shoved them inside. Jeans, shirts, the works. It all piled into the black baggage.

Something about leaving this place made my heart ache. I looked towards the shelves surrounding my bed. Living here hadn't been an _all my life _factor with me, but it sure as hell made it depressing that I was deserting the only bedroom I'd ever called _mine. _It hurt to look. Turning away seemed my only option. The closet gaped before me, a square jaw ready to swallow me in an instant. As a kid I'd pretended it was a cave, and a dragon lived in there. I used to take my brigade of stuffed animals and hide on the end of my bed, pretending we were going to ambush the monster (which was actually just one of Dad's green sweaters.) The memory brought a prickling in the back of my eyes that I wasn't fond of. Even though I hadn't lived here long, in this house full of destiny and retention and experiences, it sure as hell held a lot of depth to it. Everything I looked at willed a memory to float to the surface of my subconscious, and I winced every time I felt one come. It made my job as the Green Ninja _that much harder_. Then for one faithful moment, my eye caught something of deep hue within the shelf atop my closet, wrapped neatly with something green. Quietly it sat, untouched for so many years that dust collected. I cocked my head. It was a stuffed bear. I remembered him.

Falafel.

Back then, when Mom had enjoyed spoiling me, I'd had tons of toys, but I loved Falafel the most. I have no idea why. I don't even know what a falafel is. Maybe it was how soft he was, or the big brown eyes looking at me all jolly and accepting that drew me so closely to him. He was never prejudiced, more of a supporter, someone to talk to when I was sent into my bedroom when Mom and Dad argued. They never liked me to see them fight. It wasn't like there was nowhere to go; as a small child, the possibilities were _endless _in this huge, two story home of six-gazillion bedrooms. I remembered coming up here once and worrying myself sick, so sick, in fact, that I started throwing up. Now, with my memories of my _whole _life back, I remembered being afraid that one day, the argument that sent me up the stairs would be the argument about sending me away to someone else. To another family I could kick in with. I remembered being _so scared _that I was going to be abandoned again that it made me anxious enough to vomit the lunch I'd just had. I scared the crap out of Mom. She made her anger much more subtle from that day on. When she wanted to have a decent fight with Dad, she'd look at me and say something like, "Lloyd, when was the last time you and Falafel searched for that dragon in your closet? Do you think he's causing mischief? Maybe you should go see, just to make sure he hasn't done anything yet." Or, "Lloyd! Did you hear that?" _What, Mom? _"I think I heard the giant moose under your bed calling you. I think he's lonely. You should go keep him company!"

Looking back on them, I knew her attempts were pathetic. Every time she came up with some bizarre excuse like that, I knew she was getting ready to fight with Dad. It's just that, as a kid, it's easier to hear that the imaginary moose living with dust bunnies wants to gather for an emotionally-expressive psychiatric tea party than it is to hear that your parents are going to fight again. It's funny, I just realized Mom and Dad did that a lot. Fought, I mean. I never really thought about it until now. Maybe because I didn't really _know _it until now.

Either way, I moved forward to reach up and uncurl Falafel from within his green nest. Ironically, his cocoon was concocted of the same green sweater that had been the dragon of the closet cave all those years ago. It was kind of hard not to smile at him. The plush squeeze of life underneath my fingers made me smile more. He was still fluffy. Still warm with the love I'd given him as a child. His fur was all flattened and scraggly, yet undoubtedly still the vibrant blue he'd been when Dad had first won him at the fair for me as a kid. (Despite all the dragon-slayings and adventures we'd gone on together.) Normally, fair prizes are these cheap-o pieces of crap that work better as dog toys than they do means of entertainment, but the vender had said she only gave away _quality _toys to _quality _customers. I remember that the booth had been called _The Castoffs. _I'd wanted to see what it was because of the cool name. I don't exactly remember what the game was about, but the vender had said that she was giving away recycled toys that had been previously played with and given away to a good will shop but never bought for years and years as prizes. All the toys had looked gently used, but I'd wanted the blue bear as soon as I saw him. There was a patch over his stomach, one that didn't seem to have been given when he was first made. I think it was that imperfection in him that made me want him. It reminded him of…well, _me._

Holding him, smoothing my thumb across a tuft of yarn fur hanging over his brown eye, I thought about my childhood. Now that I knew all of it, I realized I had a _crappy _childhood. I mean, I was the last person in the world to deserve utter perfection, to deserve great happiness, to deserve a childhood of normality. But thinking about it made me sad. I had been unrightfully handed away by _Caroline, _of all the people in the world to be handed away by. I had been associating with my abandoner for a long period of time back on the _Bounty 2, _before I'd known she was a gear-compelled psychopath. I had been looking her in the eye and I hadn't even known what she'd done to me. And then here it all was, laid before me like a picnic mat filled with a variety of corrupted, sickening foods representing my memory, and it proved no better than the ones I'd had before that. Somehow, she'd tied into my life many, many years after she'd passed me on. And the worst part was, even though he hadn't known me then, I'd met Zane before he even understood who I was. He'd—partially—_fought _for me. I wouldn't expect him to bend over backwards to keep me in his custody, but it was scary and awestriking that I had come upon Zane before the Ninja were ever formed. I assumed at that point in time, he was a robot. What I found strange was the way he dressed. Very old-style. I didn't remember ever being so old. But then again, the Fireman's Circle was a town trapped in time; I remember in Darkley's they always dissed the civilized time-capsule because of its Victorian regime. So I guess it wasn't _that _far back in time.

Or was it? Thinking back to the flashback, Mom and Dad—Damon and Misako—had been really young. Like _twenties_ young. Now, they were old, graying, frail. And since then, I'd only grown eight years. (Not counting my weird time-lurch into puberty.) How was that possible?

Absentmindedly I pulled Falafel closer to my chest. The familiarity of his tiny plush body against mine reminded me so much of this house, of my youngness, that it twisted my insides in a pleasant stomachache. I'd tried my hardest not to think about all my parent issues, but now it was impossible to slaughter the inevitable. I pulled at his ear nervously. An accustomed habit of mine from youth.

Damon and Misako were somehow older without me even properly reaching teenagerdom. I wondered how that even came to be. I wanted to ask, but normally, my elders are touchy about their ages; I'd asked Uncle Wu one time how old he was (I was still ten) and he'd replied that it's knowledge for only the wind to know. Not exactly the best cover up his genius could've invented, but nonetheless a learning experience. I found that girls didn't like that question either. I hadn't been able to find out how old Nya was by directly asking her, and Jay didn't like it either when I'd asked him; it took a while to pinpoint Kai and prod the question. When I'd asked him, she was seventeen. I wondered if that was still true now.

Anyway, backing onto my task: Damon and Misako happened to be old. But when discussing age in the same category as my adoptive parents, it led me to think about my biological mother's age, and that struck a raw chord in my heart.

She didn't look any older than me, which made it really hard to believe that she was my mother. Although she really _wasn't. _She was a robot, technically a replica of my _true _mother, who had died after a spell that resurrected me. I didn't know if it was worse to have your father be a power-starved evil lord or a robot that didn't even age as your mom. I'd grow, and she'd stay as young as she appeared. How was that anywhere near socially acceptable?

Could I even _accept _her into my life? How could I? She wasn't there for me. She didn't try to find me, even though she knew that I was still alive—she'd been the one who brought me back, after all. She didn't fight for me, not really. She let me disappear. And then, now, with me standing in the same house as her, she hadn't even given me more thought than she would a fly. I would think that if you just met your son, who you haven't seen since your death, you would react a _little _more than how she did. I don't care if she's a robot. She has to have _something _in her. I know Caroline did, and Caroline was built before Danielle was, deeming her an older model. Julien had proven himself to have excelled greatly with every new robot he built. Danielle had something about her that Caroline didn't, which I didn't know what, but apparently Caroline had more emotion than Danielle did. All I know is that if _I _met _my _kid, I would've tried my hardest to make amends with him, to make him happy, to try and fix the broken strings. Her reaction to me—so flippant, so ignorant—was what made me sizzle. I hated admitting that it _hurt. _It _hurt _to have discovered this alongside my true potential and not even get so much as the bat of an eyelash from it. The subject of 'parents' had always been a little touchy for me—I didn't remember them before yesterday, not really, anyway, only in fragments and particles that were practically nonexistent—but _now, _with everything I knew, touchy had evolved into _cantankerous_. I was outraged. I had been abandoned by so many people in my life, and I hadn't lived it that long.

Where was the fairness in that?

I didn't realize that I was staring longingly into Falafel's eyes—subconsciously wishing that I could somehow sink back into the good-old-days and we could go hunting for that shy moose underneath my bed again—until I heard a voice, light but deep, at my door. "So you found him."

I looked up to see Mom standing in the doorway, her hands in her back pockets. Her glasses were straight on the bridge of her short nose. To my expectance, the hair rebellion had quickly dissipated, and she'd put it back into that usual braid again. I shyly toyed with Falafel's hand. I wasn't embarrassed, not really, of being caught with him. After all my thinking I just didn't know what to say.

Mom wasn't alone. Dad was behind her, moving in through the slim doorway after she stepped inside my room. His arms crossed over his chest when he leaned towards the frame, propping his shoulder against it for support. They were both here for a reason, and I can't say I wasn't a little relieved they'd come to me first. Before we left this house, some things needed to be said. Even if they hurt to hear.

Mom smiled at me and examined my friend closely from a distance beside my father. "I put him away after I took you to Darkley's and finally returned home," she said softly. Her tone was nonchalant. "You had left him on the floor of the living room. I wanted to bring him to you, but I didn't know that I could return to the school and leave again without taking you with me." Her glasses seemed to fog with the glaze that set into her eyes. This made me squeeze Falafel tighter with a quick jab of anger. It flexed into my fingertips, forcing a clutch out of my muscles. This was _also _one of my motherly issues that needed to be discussed.

"Why did you take me there?" I demanded. I tried to keep the anger out of my voice. It threatened to boil over if I didn't quiet it just a little, although no matter my method of procrastinating, it never truly would go away.

Misako looked up at me. The wistful gleam in her eyes made me hold Falafel tighter to me. "I was scared to keep you. Even though Wu had banished your father, I knew I couldn't take care of you and research about you at the same time, Lloyd. I knew you were going to be the Green Ninja—"

I'd heard this before. Cutting in, my voice held a razor-sharp edge I hoped she heard. "Why take me if you were just going to abandon me anyway?" I asked, harsh. Mom winced. I felt bad, but I needed to know. _Had _to. If I wanted to stay sane.

"We didn't _know _that any of this would happen, Lloyd," said Damon. I shifted my attention from Misako, struggling to maintain composure, to who I called my father for so many years. "We didn't know that I would become…"

I found myself asking the question I didn't want to voice. It was more of a reflex, really. "Why do it if you knew you were a doomed couple anyway? Why take me when you _knew _that you could never be together? Why make me _suffer with you _when all of this, the _unavoidable, _happened?" I snarled. My heart was thundering a quick pulse in my wrists. I had opened myself up to emotions—a deadly action in a time like this. Unconciously, I knew that when I worked myself up by letting in too many emotions at once, my heart raced, and when my heart raced, the venom spread faster, thus making me become _the Other Guy. _I was confused, I was angry, I was sad—all of these plus more factored to it. It's just that _as _I'm doing it, as I'm letting myself do this, as I'm releasing toxic endorphins and hormones into my body, I don't care that I am.

I guess you could say my dad was a miracle worker. He was an expert in the Devourer venom field. His face was unreadable. Stepping forward, he held out his hands towards me. "Calm down, Lloyd. We can talk about this when you're calm."

Deep down, I knew he was right. And I wanted to follow through. But my heart was already thundering. "It's stupid. All my life I've lived with that name, and it isn't even mine," I shook my head. "No. I want to know _now. _Why bring me into this? Why did I have to be a part of this? Why couldn't I just have been let _be?" _

"Because," Misako answered. She moved forward towards me. Her kind eyes searched mine. "I couldn't have babies. We wanted a child. And no matter what, you are _still _my son, regardless of who we took you from, Lloyd. We love you. You wouldn't be who you are today if we never took you; you never would've known you were the Green Ninja. Think about how _different _you would be if we hadn't taken you. Think."

My life would be indefinitely different. She was right about that. If Misako and Damon hadn't wanted to pick me up, a different couple could've. But I might've had a shot at a _normal _life; I could've been a normal kid, a normal ten year old right now hanging out and playing with my friends, going to _real _school with _real _people. Not fighting demons or devils or doppelgangers or robots. Maybe I would've had the opportunity to join soccer or something. I'd watch on the news the stories about the fabulous Ninja saving Ninjago once again, but have no connection to them whatsoever. I would have everything that I had never gotten. No weird parent issues. Just…me. A ten year old. Not a ten year old stuck in a seventeen year old _body. _

It sounded like heaven.

I looked down at Falafel. The sight of him made me fall into ease. I was tired of running. I was tired of hiding, tired of running, tired of dying, tired of blood and sweat and crying and most of all, _drama. _I was just plain tired. My heartbeat, rising a climax, suddenly descended back into normal rhythm, where I found my pulse disappearing from my veins and returning to usual. My shoulders slumped with the decrescendo of emotion draining from inside of me. The air was sucked away. I took to sighing out, and it was the exorcism of the Other Guy from within me (for the moment.) He was gone after I was sort-of calm.

Falafel's buttonish brown eyes gazed into mine, and he seemed to understand completely what I was thinking. That old telepathy we'd had all those years ago still existed. My blue bear, my best and only friend from childhood, still believed in me. He still had faith in me. I was tired. And he was tired, too.

Without warning, I began to cry.

I cry too much. I know that. I cry way more than anyone else who looks my age does. But you have to remember I'm still a child within. I don't have any concept of real teenager attitude, at least not completely. I'm still in transition with that one. And I've had more stress than anyone in the whole world dumped on me; the life of every single human being rests in my hands. I've experienced practically everything and I'm only a kid. But, really, is crying the best way to deal with it? Probably not. But, go ahead…Cry…

Misako's arms wrapped around me. I let her hold me, but I couldn't bring myself to do more than stare at Falafel, unsure of anything. My old best friend stared back. Knowing I had to run with everyone else with my tail jammed between my legs, it was an ultimate decision to bring him with me, to give myself back the eight years that we never had. _It'll be our new beginning, _I thought into the soulful brown beads. _This will be our new adventure. I'll make it up to you, I swear…_

Yeah. Me. Promising to a bear. But I owed him. He'd kept me company, kept me happy. Now it was my turn to give him that back.

My father moved into the room. Through my soundless tears I looked up at him. Comfort usually came when I saw him, but today I couldn't harvest much. It was my fault, not his. To demonstrate the opposite, he patted my shoulder and did this inconspicuous movement I didn't see coming, somehow managing to wrap me into the fold of his arms and pull me against his chest. I fell to him. My father had never hugged me before. We didn't normally interact to each other on that kind of level. But he did now. And I loved him for it.

I felt him turn his head and plant a scratchy kiss against the side of my head; Misako rested her head against my back, holding onto me. We were this hugging sandwich, and I was jammed into the middle, but with their embrace I felt somewhat better. Somewhat.

That pitiful ache within me failed to subside. "I just hate doing this. I can't do this anymore, Dad," I whispered, my voice shaking as I breathed it into his ear. "I just can't."

It took him a moment to process it. The hesitation made me fear his words, but Damon surprised me again. "I know, son," he whispered back. "I know."

They held me while I mourned.

* * *

**Burning Fan Question: **What toy did YOU have as a child that was your best friend/that you absolutely LOVED?

**Smile at them today. Say thank you. No matter how old you are, they still love you. Have a Toy Story 3/Andy moment and just tell them. **(Shaggy is going to sleep on my bed with me tonight. :-)

**Moving out next chappie! **Lloyd says goodbye to the Garmadon residence, and Lou receives a shocking surprise. What will it be? Stay tuned to find out!

**Please **review. **PLEASE **smile at your loved ones. **PLEASE **cherish life. And **PLEASE **go have an AWESOME day/night!

**Oh, and NFAN contest submissions- send them in soon! The end date is coming! **

~Kairi


	32. Chapter 32

**This chapter starts out with an omniscient POV. It is extremely long. Just a warning.**

* * *

**CHAPTER THIRTY TWO:  
**Darkness Descends

Outside the Garmadon residence, a rented Subaru hummed, ready to carry the first crusade to the monastery of peace. The livelihood of the house was loud today. People were moving along, readily awaiting their patrol to leave the Garmadon residence for good. Zane was practically boiling over with utter excitement. He darted from room to room while Ed and Edna gathered their things out of the downstairs guest bedroom and Lou retrieved things from his upstairs; Zane had orphaned the memory chip in the living room without more than a blink. _That's over, now I'm doing something else, _his actions seemed to say. He was excited. "We're going on a field trip!" he gasped to Jay, who didn't look as excited.

"Ayuh," the redheaded boy responded, and that was that.

…

Rikku hadn't brought much with him in the first place. He grabbed the dilapidated old carpetbag that Julien had offered him with elden close inside. Rikku recognized the dressings as the things he had brought with him when he moved in with the Juliens all those years ago, about two years after Zane had died, after he forgot how to live. It was nice to have something that belonged specifically to _him _for once. He exited the downstairs bedroom that the girls had slept in; Rikku didn't sleep, so he hadn't needed a bedroom all to himself. Just his journal to record things in. He kept that tucked safely within his carpetbag and vowed that whatever happened from this day out would be all for Zane and bringing him back from the unknown.

…

Nya trotted into the kitchen. Edna awaited her with a smile on her face as the young girl drug her own bag with her. It was a blue duffel decorated with her name, printed in pretty jewels. Edna had taught Nya how to make it some time ago, but Nya wasn't good with time so she didn't remember exactly which time it was. All she understood was that it was really pretty, and she liked Edna. The older woman waited for her with a bottle of water in her hand, twisting and untwisting the cap in a motion of nervousness. Her eyes behind her small glasses were happy, but there was something within them that made Nya sense something was wrong. She dropped her bag onto the floor. "Muuyyyy…?" Nya made the noise, but wasn't able to get the words out correctly. Edna's face transformed for the better to cover up the consternation with false happiness.

"Hello, dear!" She beamed. Nya held out her hands, and Edna, sensing what she wanted, chuckled. The bottle of water was passed into Nya's captivity. "Are you excited to go?"

Nya swallowed a large drink of water. It poured down her throat, cooling her insides, with the bottle expressing a crinkling noise. "Mmmmhm," Nya nodded enthusiastically. She held out the bottle for Edna to take. "Fnnnnn."

"Fun?" Edna asked, and Nya nodded again. The woman's smile turned soft. "Yes, it will be, won't it?"

The kitchen door swung open. Nya turned around to find the boy called Jay, the one with the handsome face and green eyes. She felt her gut twist a little. "Huy," she waved her fingers, and Jay's soft eyes fell on her. He smiled.

"H-hi, Nya," he squeaked. When his cheeks turned red, he cleared his throat and looked towards Edna. The absence of his gaze made Nya feel empty. She hugged her belly, bulging with the baby, to comfort herself. "Mom? I have a—"

_"WAIT," _Edna held out her hands. Behind her glasses, now, her eyes had gone wide and expressive. Nya caught the sight of tears starting to arrive. She didn't know what was so amazing, but the awestruck glimmer on her face seemed to expel itself into the air. Nya devotedly sucked up every drop of happiness and love pouring out of this woman's aura. She adored those feelings. "Did you just call me…_Mom?" _

"Yeeeesss," Jay looked at Edna out the corner of his eye. His sketchy expression made Nya giggle, especially with the way Jay tilted his head and looked at the older woman like she was crazy. "Why wouldn't I?"

"JAY!" Edna shouted, and launched herself at him.

She collided against him so harshly that he jerked back a step, practically stumbling over his feet. His dazed expression attributed to his slow movements when he started to slowly hug her back. Nya clasped her hands over her belly, adoring the sight of this. This beautiful, happy reunion. Reunion of _what, _though, Nya couldn't tell. "YOU REMEMBER!" Edna cried, and buried her face in his shoulder. Jay still looked surprised.

"Yeah, um, remember _what, _exactly?" he asked. Edna pulled back to look at him. Her face glistened with wet tears.

"You remember I'm your mother," she whispered.

"Yeeeahhhhh…"

"Does that mean you remember everything else, too?" She grabbed a handful of Jay's shirt, pulling him closer to her face. Nya continued to rhythmically rub circles across her belly, soaking in the peaceful vibrations in the air. "Do you remember being a Ninja?"

Jay sighed. "No. But I _do _know that you're my mom. I don't really know why I'd think differently?" His last sentenced posed a question.

Nya caught Edna nervously leaning backwards. Her face and aura had alternated from pure happiness to quiet concern. "But don't you remember thinking that the Garmadons were your family?" She asked edgily.

Jay's face morphed into confusion again. Nya didn't like him to be confused, strangely. "When did I think that?"

"Jay, this is no time for jokes."

"I'm not joking. I'm serious. Why would I think that they're my family? I don't even look like them."

"Neither do I," said a deep, scratchy voice belonging to neither Jay nor Edna. Upon hearing it, Nya's body went rigid. _Know that voice, _her thoughts whispered. Her stomach seemed to vibrate excitedly, in a good way. Jay's kindly embrace with his mother parted to view, and Nya trapped sight of who was standing in the kitchen doorway, propping the swinging door open with one hand. _Picture, _she thought. _Saw you in a picture. Know you._

Jay rubbed the back of his neck nervously. But Nya was bursting with excitement. She squealed so loudly that Jay's head whipped around to look at her, and in the doorway those deep blue-red eyes turned on her with an inquisitive cock of the eyebrow. His beautiful face, round, and his golden hair, perfect—he was here, here for her, like she dreamed. He'd come back from…wherever…to come for her. Nya started to cry with happiness. She soaked him in right down to the cupid's bow of his upper lip. The look of him, dressed in a leather jacket over a light green shirt, jeans and a pair of worn out sneakers, his face vibrant, his skin exquisitely _gorgeous _and tan—Nya squealed again, jittered, put her hands to her face and pulled them away again. He was _here. _

"Buhb-eeeee daddy!" she screamed. And she ran at him. He looked startled. "Buhb-ee daddy!"

…

Zane jumped up and down. In the upstairs hallway, he stood beside who introduced himself as Damon, Lloyd's father, but Zane had not a clue who Lloyd was, so he smiled and pretended he did. Mee-sah-co had gone into the bathroom. That was where Seiko was, where Danielle was, where they were using a pair of pliers and tweezers to pull out the terrible pricklies that Zane had seen earlier. Damon patiently waited. In his hands he played with a green sweater nervously, twisting and untwisting the arms for comfort. "Nervous?" Zane asked, and hopped between feet.

"Slightly," Damon expressed. Zane smiled.

"Say-co will be fine. She is strong. I can sense it." Without warning, Zane poked Damon. Really it wasn't because he was trying to get his attention, but because he felt like it. Zane was notorious for randomly articulating actions that had no starting cause. A lot of times, he was the one who annoyed Jay with his many hundred questions and pulling at his hair and poking his cheek and trillions of other things. Jay never liked it, but never got mad at Zane, either. It was fun.

Damon was different, though. He raised a hairy gray eyebrow at the boy. "What was that for?" he asked. Zane shrugged.

"Can I go in now? You said they were almost done." He asked, pointing to the bathroom.

Damon sighed. Zane had asked this too many times for the past two minutes. "No. You cannot."

…

Lou zipped up his suitcase. His heart was heavy, his shoulders sagging. It wasn't moving out again, or the noise of the house, or the direct instructions he had to follow that was stressing him. It was the thought of what an awful father he was. Lou had never been very good at expressing his feelings—both of his children inherited it—and when it came to trying to explain them to people, he failed miserably. He wanted his children to know what he was feeling, but it never came out the way he wanted it to.

He had always been kind of bad at parenting. When Cole was young, he was always doing things wrong, always saying the wrong things and whatnot. He offended everyone because his thoughts came out differently than they actually were. A lot of times, it was his wife who cleaned up his messes because Lou was incapable of cleaning them up himself. It proved what a failure he'd come to be.

He'd scorned his son. After so many years, it was Lou that drove his son away because he refused to accept that Cole was a vampire. There was no way to _change _what he was, but as a father he had never accepted that. Wasn't it the universal rule to love your children no matter what they were? Julien, the man who had fathered Zane, the man who had left here after a few weeks of arriving, had never scorned his son. Zane had been a _robot, _but that had never mattered to Julien. Lou couldn't help but compare himself to that. He was in the same situation and he handled it so completely differently than Julien had—he could've used some tips from him, but it wasn't like men to go exchanging fathering ideals with one another. Obviously, Zane was well capped in taking care of himself and had never needed to hear the words _I love you _or _You mean so much to me _to know he was cared about. Regardless of that, Julien had told him every day when he was here. (Zane never understood but that was beside the point.) And Lou hadn't said it _once. _Not once. Not one time did he look Cole in the eye and say _I love you, son. _Everyone needed to hear it, but that was a factor Lou neglected every day of his life. He was scared of accepting reality, and now he had no other choice but to.

Sending Seiko away was no different. There wasn't a doubt to anyone she met that she was erratically insane, not right in the head. By moving her off to Sunnyside, Lou had eliminated one problem of his life. He felt guilty that he had done so selfishly for himself rather than for the better of her good. He'd done it because he didn't like her and didn't want to deal with her anymore. Parents only did that when they were tired of listening to their child scream about something, so they put them in the corner. Lou had gone to the extreme and shoved her into an asylum where he wouldn't have to look at her every day. When his wife died, it was just a matter of eliminating the problem that reminded him so much of her…and that was Seiko.

She looked so much like his wife it hurt to see her. She sounded like her, looked like her—she had her _laugh. _And at the same time, Seiko looked like her mother's killer: Maya. He didn't want to face the person he'd lost and the person he hated every day of his life. He didn't want to look at the woman he loved _and _her murderer just by looking at his own daughter. So he got rid of her. And that was that.

Lou had loved Cole more than anything. He still did. He wanted to make amends with his son, make sure his son knew he was loved. He had to do just as well as Julien had. No matter if he was a vampire or a robot or a Mormon, Cole needed to know that Lou loved him. He left the suitcase at the top of the staircase, moved past Damon and Zane—a reminder that Julien was a _real _father, and Lou wasn't—into the narrow steps. As he suspected, his son was just sitting up on the couch, trying to remove himself from that massive hangover headache that came with the bullet hole in his head. To see his son in such pain made _Lou _hurt. He swore he would get the bastard who shot his son like this. No one hurt his son and survived. Not with Lou around.

The living room was empty. Perfect. "Cole," he said. His son rubbed his forehead irritably but looked up with gentle eyes. "We need to talk."

"Uh, yeah. Okay." Cole pulled his legs over the side of the couch. The space beside him was left empty. This was the only chance Lou would get to talk to his son, to make proper amends, and the boy needed to know everything. Lou would try his hardest to get everything out the way it was supposed to come out. He wouldn't screw up this time. He sat down hard as a rock on the couch and stared his son in the eye.

Cole's silver irises looked at him. His pupils widened and shrunk. The action looked like a camera lens focusing and unfocusing. Lou recognized it as a voluntary manipulation; vampires did so when they were testing a subject for levels of high danger or predatory instinct. Lou relaxed to show that he wasn't a threat. His son _would _attack him if he knew anything was coming.

"Cole, I know you don't remember me," he said quietly. Cole tilted his head to the side to listen better. _Since he doesn't remember anything, _Lou thought with a hard swallow, _he doesn't remember covering up all those actions before. Now, he's doing them without covering them, for everyone to see. Listening like that, watching someone with those eyes, taking in my every move. Using his real animal instincts is part of his everyday life now. _"But that doesn't matter anymore. I think I've told you this about seventeen times now, and none of those times did you believe me, and that's okay. I'm your father. That probably has no impact on you at all right now. Hearing it, though, I think hearing it can help you—your subconscious _knows _who I am, even though you don't think you do. No matter of that at this moment, if you have no damn idea who the hell I am, just the guy who tries to get you to sing and you hate it. I know you don't like it, son. Do you know how I know that? There is still a past behind you—you saw some of it in that video." Lou motioned to the T.V. Cole's eyes watched the motion closely. "You still have a past. There was a life before this day, before today, that helped shaped you and who you are. Without those experiences, you wouldn't be the boy—the man—that you are right now. So even if you don't remember, it's still there. You wouldn't exist if it wasn't.

"And in your past…I wasn't a very good father. I don't blame you for not wanting to try to remember me. I was awful to you—I never respected _your _ideals, never respected what _you _wanted. You never wanted to be a singer or dancer. You just wanted to be left alone, find your purpose. I didn't listen to you. I listened to myself. _I _wanted you to be a singer and dancer, so I pushed you. That's not what real parenting is. That's not what parenting is at _all. _And I'm so, so sorry for not respecting that. If I could take back _every _awful moment I spent with you, I would. What a father's goal is for his son to be happy. You _deserve _to be happy. It's just that after your mother died, I got worse. I didn't care about anything. Anyone. I wanted to do what I wanted to do, and that was extremely selfish of me. I regret it every day. Your childhood wasn't acceptable at all for how I treated it. If I were you, looking back on myself, I would've run away from me, too.

"No words could ever express how sorry I am for all of that. I was wrong. Very, very wrong. But even if I treated you poorly, I still loved you. And you know I _suck _at telling people how I feel. I _SUCK. _I never told you enough how much you meant to me, how much I care about you, how important you are to me. Without you in my life, Cole, everything would be miserable. The days would be a starless night, empty, cold. I can't imagine how my life would've been if you didn't exist, but I can tell you now it wouldn't have been better without you. I would never have been happy. I love you, son. I love you more than anything in this whole world. You were always my favorite; I was closer to you, despite the bumps you and I had—I think it was our arguments that brought us so close. We are so alike. So, so alike. I love you so, so much. You mean everything to me. And I will do anything I can for you, son, to make sure that _you _can come back to yourself." Lou reached out his hand and put it on his son's shoulder. Cole's eyes speculatively retracted. "You are my life, Cole. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. _No one_ in this _whole_ damn world is more important to me than you, my son. I love you so much. And I'm so sorry for what I've done to you. I regret it. I really do. I'll do whatever I can to make up for how _awful _I was to you. I love you. Always."

Cole looked at him, weighing the stinging in Lou's eyes. For once, he hadn't screwed up anything he said. Everything came out how he wanted, and he was happy with his speech. It was worth it to tell his son how he felt, and having done it lifted a weight off his shoulders.

Cole's pupils finally grew to normal size again. His expression softened. Lou didn't expect Cole to understand any of it, but he was glad he said it. The boy's lips upturned into a smile. Then, without warning, Lou's brain processed the wrap of his son's arms around him, the tightness of the hug he hadn't expected. Lou rested his chin in bewilderment on his son's shoulder. It took him a moment, but when he came to, he hugged his son back with everything he had.

"I love you, son," he whispered again. His heart beat faster against his words.

And the unthinkable happened then, the beauty of a moment Lou never expected, either. His heart flooded. So did his eyes. "I love you too, Dad," Cole whispered in his father's ear. "_Always_."

…

Maya slipped down the stairs, practically purring with satisfaction. Moments ago she'd been a witness to the infamous bitch _Seiko _walking out of that bathroom, wrapped in a tattered blue robe, her eyes wide with fear and the sound of her heart thrumming in Maya's ears. That little boy, Bokuyo something-or-other, was attached to her hand. From the gossip of all the holy mongrels living in this house, she'd overheard that that boy was her _son. _From the future, but nonetheless her kid. It made Maya angry and jealous and hateful. So that little _bitch _got a kid, but Maya didn't, because stupid _Cole _didn't want to _cooperate. _It wasn't _fair. _

But that had been paid for already in exceedingly delicious currency. Maya had been a witness to overhearing—thanks to vampire hearing—Misako and that goody-goody Danielle talking about what had been inside of the "spines stuck inside of Seiko's body." Maya had picked up from their minds, then, that the illusionist Caroline had put some kind of whip around poor, poor Seiko that injected spines filled with a mysterious green liquid in them. Spines that, upon impact, began _draining _the liquid into their host. And there was "writing on the wall"—Maya had seen it through Misako's mind, and it sent chills corrupting her body. Danielle had sent out Seiko and Bokuyo from the room so the two "elders" could converse about it in silence, because obviously, the mother of the pair was horrified. Then they'd called in that Damon guy into the bathroom so they could talk about it with _him. _They had also made that delicious hunk, Kai, keep his mouth shut and had him stand in the hallway with little Zane. When Maya had left, the two were talking about the "field trip" to the monastery. In any case, Seiko had gone downstairs a minute ago because Danielle claimed there was a fresh pair of clothes awaiting her on the bed in their room.

But something else had gotten in the way of that.

And Maya heard it all.

To get to the girls' bedroom, you had to go through the living room. Maya had known the living room was occupied by Cole and Lou, who had gone in a few moments before Maya came upstairs to eavesdrop. She'd tuned in her ears to listen to that conversation from the top of the steps. She _may _have kept it a secret that the Lou was conveying extremely deep thoughts that were only to be heard by Cole. Meaning, that little rat Seiko didn't know. _Also _meaning that, once she got to the door of the living room, she'd heard _every word _her father spoke.

Maya's mind vibrated with pleasure as she reached the bottom of the staircase. As she'd already known, the rat was standing at the closed door, listening. Maya knew she'd heard the _favorite _part and the _most important thing _snippet. That, and just about the whole conversation of a father venting his sorrow to his son for every action he'd wrongfully done to _him, _when compared to what he'd done to his daughter, was nothing.

Ah, _joy. _Joy, joy—_isn't it such a great day, my little doppelganger bitch? _Maya thought. _You may look like me, sound like me, but you know what, little girl? I have it better than you _ever _will. _Her heels stamped on the hardwood floor, and she crossed her arms over her chest, smiling grimly. The little boy turned, but Seiko continued to stare at the closed living room door. Her shoulders were trembling.

_God, I love this. _"Ooh, that stings," she said cheerily. Seiko didn't move. Bokuyo, looking at Maya with big gray eyes, tugged on his mother's sleeve to no avail. Funny, his ring of blonde hair and slim face reminded Maya of someone. She couldn't put her finger on it. "Looks like every little hope _you _prayed for didn't turn out as planned, huh? Poor Seiko. Daddy doesn't love her." Maya was enthralled. This was the best moment _ever. _

"Shut up," snapped the little boy. Maya turned her steely eyes on him. She watched the little boy duck behind his mother's legs when she contracted her pupils.

"I mean, that's gotta hurt," she continued with fake sympathy, "being rejected by your dad and all. Putting you in an asylum is _one _thing, but apologizing to your brother for _nothing? _That's harsh."

Seiko said nothing. She stared at the floor. Maya saw tears glistening in her eyes. She decided to remain taunting her. It was too much fun to see this little good-for-nothing slut have her emotions beat up by her father. "Isn't it just _terrible _to be hated by everyone who looks at you? Isn't it _painful _to have everyone look at you tentatively because you're insane? Don't you hate it when people _baby _you, act all careful around you, because they know if they're not careful, you'll snap? Don't you just want that to go away sometimes? Just…_end _the pain? Make it go away? Hm?" Seiko didn't respond. Maya purred. "There's a solution, you know. Actually, there's two. The solutions are really simple. You just have to look for them. The first one is kind of lame—it's called the Humanity Switch. Just turn it off, and all the emotions you have just"—Maya clucked her tongue—"disappear. You feel nothing. And then there's the second one, _my _favorite. I recommend you use it. It's called a _knife." _Maya made a fist and slammed it against her chest. She saw Seiko watching out the corner of a teary eye. Maya's half smile, leering and bitchy, pulled towards her lips. "Either one, it makes all your troubles disappear."

Seiko looked at her. Her eyes glistened with tears, but her expression was empty. Bokuyo buried his face in his mother's belly. _Look at you, you pathetic little whore, _Maya thought. _Forlorn and broken because Daddy didn't love you. How sad. Maybe if I'm lucky she'll ask _me _to finish her off. Being able to kill this little bitch…I hate her. Hate hate _hate. _I hope you die. I hope you die a horrible, painful death, and never ever fucking return. Maybe I'll be the one who kills you, you god damned piece of shit. I hate you. HATE you. _Maya forced a hard smile onto her face. "I'd consider them," she said.

She looked up the staircase when she heard Danielle say, still concealed in the bathroom, _"We need to get Maya, as much as I hate to admit it. I'll get her. You get Kai. This needs to be discussed, just—don't tell Lloyd. Not yet. He can't know about this."_ Maya had been so wrapped up in torturing little Seiko that she'd missed the action. She pouted, then turned towards her stupid doppelganger. "I got to go, Psycho. Nice talking to you. And _good luck." _She smiled frostily at the other girl.

Then she darted up the stairs, and was gone.

…

"GAH!"

Nya squeezed him as tight as she could, unable to get very far with her stomach bulging out so vigorously. He cried out underneath her. "Good lord! Jeez! Nya! OW! Okay, you just _pinched _me—let go! Nya!"

"Nya!" Edna's voice called out. Nya let go of him enough to lean back and look at him. Her eyes were wide across her face. He had come back for her, come back to be with her—oh, it was _perfect! _Edna said it was only a couple of months until the baby was going to come, and now they could be a _family, _the three of them, like a mama and a daddy and a baby—oh! It was so exciting! She looked up at him with her heart pounding excitedly within her.

"_Hai_," she welcomed. The boy's right eyebrow raised. "Hai, you! _Hai! _Msssss you."

"Um. Uh. Uhhhhhhhhhhh…" He looked a little scared. Nya figured it was fine. She buried her face in his chest. He smelled like soap and cologne. Like a _winterfresh_ kind of brand. He smelled _yummy. _So yummy she could bite him, but she refrained.

"Nya," Edna's hands grabbed her shoulders, but Nya clung to him, squealing. He raised his hands away from her. "Nya, let him go. Lloyd doesn't want to be held onto like that…Nyaaa…"

_Lloyd. _That was his name. Lloyd. _Beautiful. _Nya gasped childishly and nuzzled deeper into his chest. "Nya, hi, um, could you let me go? Nya? PLEASE? You're gonna kill my kidneys. Nya. Really. Please?"

_Came back, _she thought dreamily. _Came back for me. _

"Nya?"

Jay's voice made shivers ripple up her spine. Nya turned her head to peek at him. There was something on his face—maybe dismay, and a little bit of offense. It made her feel bad. She just didn't know what was making _him _feel bad. "Why are you holding him like that?"

Nya smiled and put her hand on her stomach. "Buhb," she murmured, and patted her bulging belly, then reached up to pat Lloyd's chest with that same hand. "Dad-dee."

Jay cocked his slashed eyebrow. "Uh. Baby daddy?" When Nya nodded happily, she saw his face twist; he was trying not to laugh. Nya's aura darkened. She pressed her lips together and sternly glared. "What? It's funny."

"WAHT."

"You mean _what." _

"WAHT SO HAHA BOUT BUHB DAD-DEE."

"It's just that…Nya…he's…" Jay snorted. He turned around to cover his mouth. Nya thought for a moment he was going to sneeze, until she saw his shoulders shaking. He was _laughing _at her. Nya finally let go of Lloyd—giving him a pat on his chest—_be back I will—_to push up her sleeves. Jay wanted to laugh at her? FINE. Jay could laugh. But he could LAUGH in PAIN because it wasn't FUNNY. She stomped towards him, purposely making her footfalls loud, and as Jay turned around to look at her, his face laughing at her, LAUGHING AT HER, she held up her hand, closed it into a fist, and swung.

Jay doubled over. His laughter quickly turned to gasps of breathlessness. Nya heard Edna gasp her name, but she wasn't done yet. "NO ONE HAHA AT BUHB DAD-DEE." She lifted her fist again and this time pounded it on Jay's back. He suffered another cry.

"That _hurt!" _Jay coughed. He was bent completely over. Nya saw her chance and stubbornly pursed her lips. Then, with a loud battle cry, she launched herself at him, baby and all.

…

Rikku stepped into the kitchen at the wrong moment, with Ed trailing behind him. Lloyd and Edna stared wide-faced at an astonishing sight of Nya sitting on top of Jay, swinging her hands at his face and crying nonsense noises that babies usually gave. He stared. Behind him, Ed said, "Oh, golly, would ya look at that, Edna."

Rikku was emotionless at the sight, but Edna looked terrified. "Oh, Ed! Go stop your son! Oh, I told him to eat his vegetables—he'd be able to stop her…"

"Actually, Mrs. Walker, we need to have a word," Rikku said tonelessly.

Edna stared at him, frightened. "But—"

"I got it, Mrs. Walker," Lloyd said. He stepped forward and talked to her over his shoulder. "You go ahead. Whatever it is has to be important. I'll stop them. You know they won't actually hurt each other…" He cracked his knuckles. Edna slowly inched towards Rikku, but not before Lloyd shouted, "Ninjaaaaa_ GOOO!" _The tornado of green burst into the room.

Rikku had to peel Edna away from the scene.

…

Nya was slapping Jay when she felt herself be plucked off of him as if she were nothing. Her head spun—_she _spun—too fast for her to comprehend that Lloyd had just grabbed her and softly tossed her into a chair at the table. She stared unsensibly at the new environment before her. She'd moved so fast…how had she gotten here? She whirled in her chair to see Lloyd reaching out a hand to help Jay up while he was down. "You okay?" asked Lloyd. Nya's jaw dropped.

Jay's face was red from her slaps. "Uh, yeah, I suppose," he smoothed his hair. Dazed, he shook his head. "That was a little…unexpected."

"Yeah, sorry about that…" Lloyd turned. Nya straightened her posture to impress him, but he looked disproving. _Mad, _she thought, hunkering down again. _He mad. _Oh, she felt so bad! She hurt Jay, and now Lloyd was mad at her. Oh, no! She messed up! Nya buried her face in her arms. _Messed up again! _Would he send her to the corner?

"No, um, it's okay…" Jay cleared his voice. Nya looked up at him. Jay didn't look mad. _Why he not mad? _She thought. She peeked again, and this time, Jay actually turned to look at her. She flinched, but he didn't get angry. He looked amused. "I see she's had a change of heart. Maybe it's just _burning _with regret…get it…'cause my face is burning…" Jay's hand reached up to caress his cheek. He looked in pain. Nya buried her face again.

Lloyd chuckled. "I got it," he said.

Then Nya heard _another _voice, this time, one she recognized just as well. "Hey, Lloyd! What's going on?" shouted that voice, and Nya remembered it. It was Kuy! Or…Kuh-aye…or…the one she had to visit all the time…Kuh…um. She peeked, but she didn't see him. Instead, she saw a black haired, handsome man standing before her…staring right in her direction.

His lips curled into a vicious smile.

…

"But we _can't _leave now!" Edna gasped. Her hands clapped over each side of her face. Surrounding Rikku, Ed, his wife, and Lou all stared in surprise, but the robot was unaffected. "Jay just remembered us!"

"And Cole remembers _me!" _Lou protested. He held out his hands pleadingly. "We can't be the first to go. Come on, Rikku. We can't." He looked back at the Subaru waiting for them.

But Rikku was relentless backed by his orders. "We've already wasted too much daylight," Rikku said monotonically. "We cannot linger any longer. I apologize for the inconvenience, but they are my commands, and I cannot displease my commander. Inside the vehicle you will be greeted with a global positioning system. We have installed the proper coordinates to your destination within it. All you must do is follow it as it leads you there. Do not worry. You will see your children quite soon. Just think, by the time they arrive, you could have already prepared them a decent breakfast at the monastery. You could cook them their favorite morning meals. Do you not think that will be pleasant? It would be a wonderful greeting for all of them. Especially Zane. He enjoys eating food."

Lou bowed his head. Regretfully his eyes scanned the tall Garmadon house behind Rikku. The robot gestured towards the Subaru again. "Please. If you will. I have already packed your belongings into it. We cannot waste any more time. I will not repeat myself again."

Ed and Edna looked back at the house. "Oh, can't we say goodbye?" They pleaded.

"Goodbye," Rikku said flatly. "Now. Go. I will tell everyone you have departed so the next contingent can proceed."

They went without another word.

…

Damon drug his hands down his face. "YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME," he groaned. He leaned back against the closet door. Lloyd had just been upset by his childhood, had just been upset by all the stress he was undergoing. This wasn't going to help him, and it made Damon so incredibly angry that his son just couldn't have that happy life that he wanted to have. The Overlord was _gone; _Ninjago should've been _peaceful _by now. Except everything just kept getting worse. Worse, worse, worse. There was no peace in this land which they existed in.

"Seiko claimed that he wants the map to the Shadow Key," Danielle expressed without tone. "Any idea where that disappeared to after Eloquim died?"

"Are any of you considering that _maybe _it's just her being the insane little creature she is?" Maya interjected. Damon swiveled his head towards her. She was the nasty vampire girl hanging in the corner, leaning against the wall where the blood had been smeared across. Upon bringing her in, they had confirmed that it _was _blood lathered across the paint—whose blood, though, that remained a mystery. It seemed the high-heeled, V-necked vampire was against Seiko in every form possible, but some of the questions she posed were quite logical. That must've been why Danielle wanted her in here in the first place. Otherwise, the two were like vinegar and baking soda.

"Seiko is claiming that the visions she experienced were real. She was not lying. I could not sense it." Danielle responded in without waver in her tone. She spoke quite robotically.

"To _her _it _is _real because _she _imagined it. But did you forget that she _is _a registered insane patient?" Maya straightened, posing her hands on her hips. Her pupils dilated angrily. "Maybe she _did _see those things. But there's a _really large chance _that they weren't real. That they were just her brain acting up because—oh, hey—_she's insane." _

"How would that explain the writing?" Damon countered. He gestured to the wall. Maya didn't even blink.

"She could've done it herself."

"What, with her colorless blood?" Danielle said. It was about as close to snarling as she would come. "Her blood doesn't have color. It's white. I told you that. When we were taking out the thorns, it revealed her blood is white. That's why her skin doesn't have any color. How that's possible, I don't know, but—"

"Human blood is blue until it's exposed to oxygen," Maya pointed out snarkily. "Maybe her blood is the same."

Danielle was unimpressed with the argument. "Her blood was white. It stayed white. It _didn't change. _It's all over my hands, if you'd like a peek." She held up her palms. Damon observed that it looked like paint, except holding the same smeary consistency like real blood did. "If I am correct, there is oxygen in this room, and it is still white."

"So?"

_"So _your argument is invalid," said a voice. It was Kai. He was sitting on the edge of the tub; he'd been so quiet this whole time, Damon had forgotten he was there. But he'd come in with Maya earlier. For the whole ten minutes they'd all been standing in here, discussing this, they seemed to not be able to answer their own questions. Maya glared down at Kai. He didn't seem to care much, and turned to Danielle. "So where _would _the map have gone after I stabbed that bastard?"

Misako thought for a minute. Damon wasn't even present for Eloquim's death—as much as he would've liked to be—to have any say in where it may have gone. Like he expected, his wife had a judgment and possible answer to the question. "I know that the authorities handed over the Mega Weapon to a museum," she said aloud, thinking. She put her fingers against her lips and thought, hard. Damon watched her. "Perhaps they passed on the Map, too?"

"Possibly," Kai said. He leaned forward and poised his elbows on his knees. "Is there any way to find out if it's there? Do you know which museum the Mega Weapon went to?"

"Ninjago City Museum," Misako answered immediately.

"Where the Grundal is?" Damon asked quietly. The Grundal…

"Yes," his wife replied softly. She rested a hand against his arm.

"Perhaps you could go there and find out," Danielle said. She, too, was thinking aloud. "You're a philosopher, are you not? It would be easier for you to be able to ask them to see it in person, touch it, perhaps photograph it."

Misako nodded. "That would be a very good idea," she complimented.

"There is not time to waste. Do you believe that you could act as such immediately?"

Misako leaned back, surprised. She exchanged a glance with Damon. "What about the monastery?" she asked slowly. Her hand on Damon's arm tightened its grip.

"The coordinates are still in your vehicle's global positioning system. You could arrive after you have completed your task. Damon could go with you."

Misako looked up at her husband. Damon knew that Danielle was right; this was a good idea. If they reached the museum and it was there, they could take a picture of it and go to the monastery with everyone else. There, they could assess their options. What could they do with it? But if the Shadow Map was in such an obvious place, why didn't Kaos—who Damon assumed this creature was—go retrieve it himself? He could take it with force. Unless he wasn't sure exactly who had it. Was that what the monster was doing? Did he want them to _locate _the map for him?

Damon's eyes roved over the bloody lettering on the wall. _The Tinkerer will go first. _Why would Kaos threaten the Tinkerer? Admittedly, the old man didn't have any part in this. Was it because it would be harming Zane? Even so, Zane didn't even _know _the Tinkerer, so how would that affect him?

Julien obviously had some bigger part in this that Damon was unaware of. That, or Kaos was starting small before he slowly worked his way in killing people that Lloyd loved. This _had _to be a ploy to somehow hurt Lloyd.

Then why attack Seiko? Was it because she was most vulnerable?

He sighed. If he wanted to protect his son, he had to do whatever he could. "We must do this, Misako," he said softly. He turned to his wife. The look of her face spoke surprise. _Don't be, _he thought quietly. _I will do what I can to protect my family. _He pulled her closer and pressed his lips against her forehead, parting with a softening _click _that made his heart jump. He may not have acted like it over the years, but he loved her. He loved her a lot. "For Lloyd."

"For Lloyd," she agreed. Then, she turned to Danielle. "We'll leave immediately."

Danielle started to say something, when suddenly her body went rigid. Her posture became pin straight, and her head snapped up to face the front, unmoving. Her eyes widened. Arms pinned to her sides. Damon, Misako, Maya, and Kai watched as Danielle became like a statue. "Blood scan complete," she said, voice heavily robotic. "Diagnosis: Twenty percent: viruses confirmed. Eighty percent: pure blood. Arachnaeus virus detected; proceed with caution. Victim is contagious. Symptoms: early stage: drowsiness, lack of food consumption, violent hallucinations, fatigue, extreme blood clots, memory loss, joint pain, erratic muscle contractions, spasms, seizures. Medium stage: vomit containing blood, previous symptoms. Final stage: vomit consisting of only blood, previous symptoms. Blood clots can be fatal. Estimated life span: twenty days. Recommended procedure: Keep victim within eyesight at all times; actions can be homicidal and suicidal. Victim must be hospitalized and quarantined."

There was an audible gasp that flowed through the bathroom. Danielle's body visibly relaxed as the robotic diagnosis was complete. Earlier, she'd stuck a sample of Seiko's colorless blood into her panel to assess what the risks were, what was happening; now _it_ was happening all over again. Misako put her hand over her mouth. Damon struggled to remain upright.

_Arachnaeus. _

Exactly what Lloyd used to have.

And now she had it, too.

_It's our timeline, _Damon realized. _Kaos was giving us a certain amount of time to get that map and that Shadow Key. If we don't get it in time, Seiko will die. Who else will die on the way there? He's going to take someone's life until he gets it. And the Tinkerer…he's first._

Kai was the first to react. He jumped to his feet. "Oh, God. _SEIKO_!"

…

IN the kitchen, Nya met the eyes of her brother she didn't recognize.

She collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

Jay turned. "HEY!" he growled, ready to defend his friend—Kai looked at him, too, wearing confidence worse than he normally did.

Jay fell to the floor, unmoving.

Lloyd stared into the eyes of his best friend. But what he saw there was nothing like his friend. No, it was nothing like his best friend at _all. _

Kai descended upon him with a laughter of odium.

* * *

**that's strange...**wasn't Kai upstairs with Damon? *devious*

**Okay.** So. I'm also posting the next chapter right now, so...while I do that, you can ponder. Unless you make it here after the chappie is posted. Then ignore my previous command. ^-^

**Anyway. Go have an awesome day/night! *and don't forget to leave a review! ;D**

**~Kairi**


	33. Chapter 33

**A/N:**

This chapter is written **completely** in 3rd person, even though there is a Lloyd POV in here. I kept his at third person because he didn't really have a thought process when it was his turn to tell the story, so it would've been pointless to have it be 1st person if there was nothing to say. XD

* * *

**CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE:  
**The Scar

Lloyd gasped in pain as he felt Kai's hands curling around his throat. His best friend slammed him against the wall, racking his head against the hard surface; stars danced in his vision. His throat closed. He couldn't breathe. All the air in the room was gone as Kai's hateful eyes glared into his. He slammed Lloyd against the wall again.

"Hello, you obnoxious little creature," he spat. Lloyd wanted to ask what the hell he was doing, but he couldn't get the air. "It's about time you and I met face-to-face."

_What…? _Lloyd made the motion with his mouth, scrabbling to grab onto Kai's hand. He pushed harder to cut off what little air Lloyd had. _I can't…think…_he thought, digging his nails into Kai's hands. He watched his best friend's mouth curl into a deadly smile.

"Can't breathe? Shame," said Kai. His nails tracked into Lloyd's jugulars; he wanted to scream, but he couldn't. _The pain…_"I could live with _killing _you _right now, _you know. It would be painless. Easy. But I need you alive just a _little _while longer, until I get my damned map." He chuckled throatily. "You think you can hide from me, little ninja? You think that you have the ability to hide so easily? Well you're _wrong. _You can't escape me. You have _no idea _who I am."

A light blinked on in Lloyd's head. This wasn't Kai. _Kaos, _he thought, startled. His eyes widened, which was probably a bad idea, for they could've popped out of his head right then. "I'm closer than you think," hissed the masked stranger through his teeth. There was a wet bubbling noise as his nails—his _claws—_dug into Lloyd's skin. He made a choked squeak. "You have no means of escaping. The monastery may keep me out, but whenever you _leave, _you will live in _danger. _I am more powerful than you _ever _could've imagined." He laughed, deep and throaty. "Have you ever heard the saying, '_keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer,' _Lloyd?"

"Have _you _ever heard the saying that whoever lays a hand on my best friend gets their ass _kicked?" _said a voice, equal to the one Kaos used to cover up his own. A smile spread across the demon's lips—across his false Kai lips—as he looked down. "Not to mention the fact that hurting my _sister _gets you sent straight to hell. I killed a Shadow Dancer, you bastard. I'm not afraid of you."

Lloyd's last breath disappeared. His lightheadedness sunk in. Not-Kai smiled again. "You should be," he breathed, his breath warm against Lloyd's face. Then, his claws retracted, as did his hand, and Lloyd dropped to the floor. His shoulder hit the tile hard. There would be a bruise there later. Kaos, still existing as Kai, turned to find the _real _Kai standing in the kitchen with fire dancing between his hands. Lloyd watched through slit eyelids. If Kai fought Kaos, he'd get killed. Lloyd tried to sit up, but his wheezing made him fall back; his chest felt like a thousand tons had just sat on him for a million years.

"I'm not," Kai admitted. He played with the fire some more. Across the floor, Jay and Nya were sprawled at awkward angles that Lloyd _knew _weren't fatal. He could just barely see them breathing. All Kaos had to do was look at them, and they were down. Kai's face was hard, and he looked pissed, Lloyd noted. The Green Ninja rested his cheek against the cool tile. It was so hard to get back the air…

Kaos launched himself at Kai. In the same moment, Kai hurled the fire. It collided with Kaos' chest, but instead of burning, it literally was _sucked _inside of him. Lloyd gasped, which it hurt to. Kai tried again to hit his double with fire-based attacks that would hurt anyone else. Time and time again, it failed.

Lloyd struggled to keep conscious. He pressed his palms against the tile, but the fog over his brain was making it hard for him to remember how to move. He collapsed against the floor in a cool puddle of breathless nothing. He couldn't think anymore. But he knew somewhere inside that he _had _to save Kai. His best friend had just been backhanded by the dark version of himself, slamming him into the wall, roughly dragging his claws down the left side of Kai's face. _No. _With a shriek, the fire ninja's eyebrow regained that familiar notch in its composure. A large scar was pulled down his eye, and Kai shrieked in pain. He held up his hands to the sides of Kaos' head. Lloyd watched helplessly as those hands began to burn orange. Like lava. Steam rose from where Kai's palms pressed.

Then Lloyd's eyes closed. And he was gone.

…

Kaos screeched. He pulled away holding the sides of his head while he tried to comprehend what the hell had just happened. Fine with Kai; as the side of his face bled, he lifted his foot and ordered a roundhouse kick into Kaos' chest. The creature went flying into the countertop. Underneath his weight, the granite broke into the cupboards below. Kai stepped forward.

"Wait a minute!" gasped a voice. He turned his head. "I want a turn."

"_Cole_?"

Cole stepped into the kitchen, cracking his knuckles. "This looks like a helluva lot of fun," he said, and looked towards Kai. He raised a thick eyebrow. "You should get that checked out. Looks nasty." Then, without waiting for a response, he hurled himself at Kaos crumpled body.

The noises were hideous. Like two animals fighting. Feral, feline-ish sounds. Cole was wearing his vampire face; he grabbed Kaos by the throat, lifted him, then slammed him into the floor. Kai raced forward to kick the beast in the side of the head. A sound of pain screamed through the kitchen where every terrible thing seemed to happen. Kai looked down, but instead of finding his double, he found Seiko.

The side of her head was bloody. She breathed heavy, eyes wide, and stared at them both in shock. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING!" she shouted, sitting upright. Kai noticed that she was wearing that tattered robe Danielle had sent her down in.

Cole's hands hooked like claws. Kai watched the vampire face deepen. "Nice try, bastard," he snarled. "But my sister wasn't wearing that when she came out of the bedroom five minutes ago."

_You know she's your sister? _Kai had time to think before Cole dove downwards again. He drove his hand towards Kaos' stomach, faked as Seiko, and before the creature could lie about anything, the vampire's hand went straight through the monster's stomach.

Cole's hand drove in until mid-forearm. "I can rip your heart out right now," he spat in her face, straddling her and holding himself up by his hand, clutching against her wrist pinned against the floor. A squishing noise ensued with Seiko's—er, no, Kaos'—gasp.

"You'd be surprised," she panted, "to find that _I don't have one." _

Her pinned hand ripped out from underneath Cole's wrist. Immediately, claws extended from her short fingers and sliced Cole across the cheek. A sound of slicing curdled Kai's ears. To his alarm, Cole fell to the side with a grunt, and his hand withdrew from her stomach. Kai watched the hole immediately close. _Accelerated healing._ Kaos leaped to his feet again, and this time shoved aside Kai before he could even blink. The fire ninja fell to a clutter against the floor beside Cole. Kaos took off for the door.

"Oh, _no you don't," _Cole growled, and raised his fist like he was going to scold the monster.

Instead, he slammed it against the floor.

An earthquake rippled throughout the house. It knocked Kaos on his butt. It also sent shockwaves knocking glasses off the shelves and books and things toppling over that weren't secure to the ground. The noise was great. The sounds of things falling from even upstairs made Kai's ears ache a little. He expected Cole to look surprised that he'd just done that, but he looked smug. _Cole remembers, _he thought in surprise. _Cole knows who he is!_

"Cole!" he gasped. The vampire turned and winked.

Kaos scrambled to his feet, regaining control after the tremor dissolving across the ground. Cole and Kai struggled to get to theirs over the glass shards that were rolling across the floor. "He's getting away!" Kai shouted. Kaos had darted out the kitchen door. _For a guy so threatening, _Kai observed, _he sure likes running away from his problems. _They sped up their pace to catch up. If he could stop Kaos with anything, it was his own element. The fire began to catch between his fingers.

In the hallway, Misako and Damon were just reaching the bottom of the steps. "Gather your things, get everyone from the kitchen, and get outside _now!" _Kai shouted. Misako's eyes bulged with startle; however he had no time to answer questions. Kaos was already out the door. They couldn't let him get away, chiefly after what he had done to Lloyd and his sister. Jay included.

Rikku was rounding the back of his sleek black Ferrari when he caught sight of "Seiko" running out of the house, Cole and Kai hot on "her" heels. "What the hell—?" the robot started, but he'd just finished the statement when Kaos threw himself upon the droid.

They toppled quickly; when the brawl of flailing, panicked limbs concluded, Seiko no longer sat there, but Ming. Kai practically tripped over his feet stopping. There was no way he could throw a fireball without catching onto Rikku, too. Kaos had poised himself atop the automaton, straddling him, feigning fright. "Rikku!" gasped Ming's voice. Kai's hands pulsed with fire. How would he be able to hit that bastard without hurting his friend? "Help me! They're attacking me because they are afraid that I'm—"

"DON'T LISTEN TO HER!" Cole shouted. "She's fake; that's Kaos! He attacked Lloyd and the others! Rikku! KICK HER ASS!"

The robot for once looked conflicted. Which was understandable; if Kai was completely cut off from the world, he too would have a stressful decision to make on his hands. Believe your girlfriend, or believe the two ninja guys you didn't know very well? "Ming's" hands softly toyed with the collar of Rikku's shirt. _"Please," _she whispered.

"HUYYYAHH!" the sound made Kai whirl. Cole was the one who made the noise of surprise when Jay leaped down from the porch. In his hands were two long purple candles, only they were attached by a piece of string that they were manufactured with. Kai had seen them decorating the wall a few times when he'd passed them in the kitchen. Now, a smile broke out on his face when he saw his friend's determined expression. _Makeshift nunchaku, _Kai thought. _You go, Jay! _

"You know what's dumb? The fact that there are _no _real lethal weapons in that house. Seriously. How am I supposed to kick ass if I don't have any proper weapons?" Jay ran to their side, twirling the candles like he used to with his nunchucks. "I _hate _being bullied, especially by freaks like that one right there. Hate it. With a _passion."_ _Does Jay remember too? _Kai wondered, but there wasn't any depth to his eyes. When Jay fought, he usually had a story in his face, but that was absent now. Kai had a feeling he was just _extremely_ pissed off.

"I like the scar, by the way," he added casually, motioning to Kai's face with the nunchucks. "Very badass."

Kaos looked up. His fake feminine hands were spread across Rikku's chest innocently, like a fondling for her boyfriend, but his mien quickly turned sour. "Oh, _you're_ awake. Wonderful." A cloud passed over the creature's face.

Jay took on a defensive stance. Kai's heart was ready to burst and boil—Cole remembered, and now Jay was fighting at their side to face the torturous creature that was _already _getting on his nerves. How could this get any better? "Yeah, thanks for waiting up," Jay said nonchalantly. His visage was steely. "You know, after knocking me out and all. The party can definitely start now."

"Sounds like a plan," Kaos said, and grabbed a fistful of Rikku's shirt.

Kai made to hurl the fireball, but the creature lurched into the air, bringing up Rikku with it. Kaos used the disturbed robot as a shield. "Hit me once, you get a little slap. Hit me _twice—" _

"Are you into futuristic gigs?" Jay asked randomly. Kai looked over. The clueless ninja of lightning twirled his improvised nunchucks in the air. "Because you're about to be knocked into next week!" Unexpectedly, he flung himself into the air, extremely ninja-like. He landed at Kaos' side and jammed his elbow into the fake-Ming's nose. Her head snapped back. It was the perfect moment for Kai and Cole to spring into action. The air felt good coursing around him as he used Spinjitzu to pull Rikku out of the way, then return in a tornado of red to aim a fireball for Kaos' unknowing face. Jay slammed his wax nunchucks into Kaos cheek. Cole cracked his knuckles.

"Here comes the boom!" He said, and his fist collided with Kaos' chest. Kai was aware of the sound of a rib breaking. A convulsion seemed to ripple through the monster, like a shockwave's tremor within the earth's crust. The air quickly flew out of the creature's lungs. He buckled.

Kai's hands turned orange. The intensity of his objectives singed greatly inside of him, the lava his palms had turned to a scorching reminder. "Watch out," he told his friends. Jay and Cole took a step back. Kaos heaved on the ground. While looking pitifully at Kai, like begging for mercy, his Ming façade morphed into someone else. He was faced with the same difficulty that Rikku had had moments before.

"Don't…" _cough _"hurt me, Kai…" Lloyd's face, dripping blood from where Jay had bruised it, stared up at Kai. His hands rested against his slowly-rising stomach. He looked half dead, with his nose bleeding and his face dripping. To look the person you love in the eye and inflict pain to them is a man's greatest weakness. That obviously was Kaos' point. _You have to remember that's not Lloyd, _he thought sternly, trying to regain control of his crumbling thoughts. Looking at Lloyd so broken and harmed made him angry. _This imposter isn't your best friend. You're here to avenge his pain. And this is the monster you must do it to. _

Kai realized that was all this ever was. Avenging. He did this for Lloyd. _Everything _he did was for Lloyd. His lava hands turned blue with heated, vicious hatred. "How _dare _you impersonate an angel," Kai snarled.

He hurled the fireball into Kaos eyes. The look of this hiding immortal screamed when its form caught fire quicker than gasoline would. Satisfaction overwhelmed him to match the scorch of Kaos' body beneath the flames of death which licked him. The flames savored every taste they spiraled of his body. _A devil impersonating an angel, _Kai thought wretchedly. _I never thought I'd see the day. _The awful screams of the hellish creature filled the air. Burning, broiling, dying within himself, Kaos resorted to violent cries. A humanoid torch rolling across the ground splayed with dirt and grass. The elements of nature refused to catch Kai's controlled fire, and Kaos burned more. Jay and Cole stepped away. Their movements followed Kai as he backed from the scene he'd created. Knowing that he'd done right. That he'd done something for Lloyd. Knowing that he'd—

The triumphant reason for celebration was gone.

_The sight of Kaos burning disappeared. _It was _gone_. The place where he'd just lain, burning to death, was empty of any sign, any indication, that Kaos had burned. It was empty.

_Clap, clap, clap. _

Kai, Cole, and Jay whirled. Caroline stood behind them, clapping slowly. Her lips were twisted into a grim smile. Hating her was easy, but it came easier when Kai realized that it was Kaos, faking himself to be her again. It was nearly impossible to lay her face to rest when so many people were dedicated to reliving the memory of her. The cold look of her dressed in thin jeans, flats, and a leather jacket reminded Kai of something, but he wasn't sure what it was, though it danced irreverently against his tongue. He heard Cole recognizing her from his side with a snarl. _Thank god at least one of them remembers, _he thought. He couldn't tell if that snarl was for shooting him or if it was just for existing altogether.

"Wonderful production," Caroline stated. Er, _Kaos _stated in Caroline's voice. But what was she even—_it was a mirage. _Oh, for crying out loud, it was a _mirage! _Kaos had faked it! He'd made the three of them think they were fighting him, when really, it had been a trick all along. Kai's fists clenched angrily. He wanted to hit something. Particularly, Caroline's face. Her smug smile grated on his nerves.

He saw Rikku standing on the porch. He was frozen. His expression didn't change. That was when Kai knew that something was wrong. "What did you do to Rikku?" he demanded. The mirage must've started after Kaos stood up as Ming; while he made the three Ninja believe they were destroying him, he actually had slipped away outside of the illusion. That took _Power. _A great, big deal of Power that Kai had never seen before in his life.

Kaos was _strong. _Stronger than their other enemies. Because while the Serpentine and the Overlord and the Skulkin and Lord Garmadon had been violent, they'd been just plain annoying but easily conquered. Kaos had the ability to take over their _minds_, make them see what he wanted them to see. And to multiple people at once. That put the Ninja at a massive disadvantage. There was no way to _tell _when there was a mirage in the first place. Not until everything had happened already. He could do it whenever he wanted, too. _This is bad, _Kai thought, oppressed. _This is really, really bad._

"He looked a little rusty," Kaos-Caroline commented. He-she reached up his-her nails to examine them closely. "I thought I'd give him a little push." He-she mimicked the motion of flipping a switch.

He'd-she'd turned him off.

Kai hoped that was _all _Kaos did.

"Yeah, well, I'll need to see your switch-turning license to do that," Cole growled. "No one touches our friend like that."

"Oh? And who's going to stop me, little vampire?" Kaos-Caroline taunted. Caroline's voice pitched with arrogance. "You? Because I don't think _you _have the power to stop _me _from doing whatever I want. You have _nothing _but a couple of earthquakes. But I, I have more Power than you could _ever _imagine. I can manipulate everything around me the way I want it to. Your mind. I can make you _think _whatever I _want you to think. _You think I'm Caroline right now. Maybe I _am _Caroline. I can be anyone, anytime, anyplace. It doesn't matter what the conditions. You _can't escape me." _

Cole unabashedly waved her off with his hand. "You're all talk," he said. Kai didn't think antagonizing Kaos was really the best plan.

Outraged, Caroline's hand flew to her chest. Kaos' eyes flashed with anger. _"I'm _all talk? Oh, I'll _show _you what talk I'm talking abo—"

_Clang. _

Caroline dropped like a rock. After a pause:

"ZANE!"

Kai had never been happier to see him. The large round pan in Zane's hand lowered at the sound of his three brothers calling his name. The expected smile that Kai knew was coming spread across his face. "Hello," he said cheerily. "I heard trouble."

Jay, Cole, and Kai ran towards him, overstepping Caroline to wrap their arms around him. Zane seemed surprised at the amount of praise he got. Kai started laughing. He couldn't help it. His friend's cluelessness was just too amazing, and he was too relieved that they'd dodged death yet again—he grasped that Cole must've been _stalling _because he'd seen Zane. Kai had been too focused on hating Kaos to notice the former nindroid creeping up behind him. Whatever. He held Zane tighter and laughed with him.

_"Rejoice now," _hissed a voice in his ear. He froze. _"There won't be any time for that later." _

Kai looked to their feet.

Kaos was gone.

He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Zane poked his cheek. It fell away stained in blood. "Your scar is most intimidating," he commented. Kai let out a dry chuckle.

"Apparently," he agreed. He looked at the ground, empty.

Cole looked, too. "Damn," he breathed.

"I'm not shocked."

"Neither am I."

"Cole?"

"What."

"Do you…remember? Do you know who you are? If you say no, I'm going to throw a fit."

"No."

"Shit."

"I'm kidding. Yeah, I remember," Cole laughed. With it, the release of something came out of Kai, and the stranglehold his stress grabbed loosened. He found his friend pulling him into a hug. Clearly, it wasn't any time for celebrating, because a whole bunch of things had gone wrong, although it was _Cole. _Cole. Kai tugged on the back of the vampire's long black hair.

"Good to have you back."

"Good to be back."

"So the bullet…didn't work?" Kai pulled away tentatively. "Dani said it was filled with some kind of weird herb that erases memories or something."

Cole's silver eyes contracted around his retiring pupils. "No. Not really. I mean, at first, I felt really clueless, but when I started to wake up and…_fed…_it started coming back to me." He rubbed the back of his neck. "It really came back when I saw Seiko. She reminded me of my past, I guess. Watching the memory chip, too, kind of helped. By the way, you look extremely weird with your facial TLC. I don't recognize you at all, except for your voice."

Kai scoffed and smiled. "Good. At least it's working, then."

"Earlier today," intersected Jay. His elbow rested on Zane's shoulder, a prop for him to lean against. Cole and Kai turned to them. "Edna said that I thought that the Garmadons were my parents. Is that true?"

"Wow. You actually said Edna right." Cole crossed his arms over his chest.

"Shut up. Did I think that?"

"Yeah," Kai answered softly. Jay looked down.

"Well."

A silence pursued them. There was no sound but the wind, whistling through the trees, caressing time while they stood and wasted it. Kai was dimly aware of the sound of the front door opening, and the inhabitants of the home exiting. _We need to go, _he thought darkly. _We're late enough as it is. _The morning had been spent chasing down mirages and doppelgangers, saving lives, getting infected, watching memories, meeting children from the future, and ten other things that Kai didn't feel like listing. Interestingly enough, all of that added onto the future waiting over them like a guillotine. As hard as it was to admit, Kaos was right. They weren't safe here. And if, as promised, Dani really _had _put the spell over the monastery that warded off demons, then they could at least rest in a safe house. But once they stepped beyond the walls of the safe haven, danger lurked in the very shadows, waiting. They weren't safe.

Misako and Damon stepped off the porch and ran towards them. "Kai! What's going on?" she asked. Her long, graying hair tumbled down her shoulders. She nervously pulled at her green ascot.

"Kaos," he said. That was the only thing they needed to hear. Damon's face darkened.

"We need to go. Now. Boys, help me with your bags." He turned to those standing among the porch. Dani was rummaging through Rikku's panel, her hands exploring inside of the square hole of his abdomen. Zane, Jay, and Cole followed Damon into the house to grab their suitcases. Kai, on the other hand, didn't need to retrieve anything. He didn't have any belongings with him. Everything he had disappeared with the _Bounty_, and Ignacia was too far away to make a rest stop to. This was before Kai heard about the tragedy that hit his homeland. (A subject to be discussed in a later chapter.) To have nothing, no possessions, meant nothing to Kai. He had his brothers, his family, and that's all he needed.

On the porch, Dani acknowledged him with a nod. "Where's Maya?" Kai asked. _What was she up to? _Trouble?

"Don't get your panties in a bunch, frisky. I'm right here." The Original appeared in the doorway, a backpack slung over her shoulder. Kai tried to hide the gritting of his teeth. He wasn't exactly thrilled that she was coming. In fact…

"Remind me, again, of your purpose here? Cole remembers everything," he said flatly.

Maya flipped a piece of perfectly curled, blood red hair out of her face. "I know." She adjusted the strap of her backpack over her shoulder. "But you _need _me."

"For _what? _Irritation purposes?"

At his side, something in Rikku's panel _clicked. _Dani's fingers pooled with black oil. "She does need to be here, as I hate to admit. Maya's superhuman abilities can be of use to us. One vampire on our side is strength; two vampires are ultimate. She is necessary to have on our team for her experience and lethal structure."

Kai sighed. _Fine. _Maya self-righteously grinned at him, but all he did was scowl in her face and push past her in the doorway. She didn't _have _real purpose. She was just security. Dani was using her as a guard dog, a method that was tricky and smart at once. It would put her to _some _use. But if she got out of line one time, devoting herself to some outrageous act of any sort, it would be Kai who banished her from the monastery. She was not going to screw up his home. No. Frickin. Way.

The light difference between the bright outside morning and the dark inside house took a moment to get used to. When Kai's eyes came to, he saw the boys pulling their things into the hallway. Jay lugged a suitcase down the corridor. "Hiya," he said. Kai gave him a tight smile when they passed each other. He promised that he'd do what he could for his friend in the car on the way to the monastery to make sure that Jay was alright. He hadn't had a good conversation with him in a long, long time. It didn't matter if what they were talking about was different brands of scissors, Kai just _needed _to talk to Jay. Their talks had been put off for far too long.

Zane drug a white suitcase down the hall next. He smiled at his friend. "Hello," he said softly. Kai muttered _hi _ back. Zane, too. He had spent ample amounts of time with the deceased nindroid in their time caught in the Elemental Realm and as ghosts. They'd become closer during then. Kai wished that Zane could remember that.

Cole stepped out of the kitchen. Kai wanted to say to him, _Do you think that we can actually get them back? _Worry was his worst enemy sometimes—he was scared that maybe they would never _get _the old Jay and Zane back. But Cole had beaten the odds. He'd somehow remembered. If that was enough for hope, Kai clung to it, knowing that somehow he'd bring back the other two. No matter what it took. Then, Kai noticed...the vampire had a shadow.

"Nya!" Kai gasped, and wrapped his arms around her. Nya grabbed onto him and squeezed. He hadn't actually seen her since their last meeting in the prison—whichever day that was. Yesterday? It didn't really matter. He pulled her close and kissed her across the cheekbone. Was it normal to be freaked out by the press of her stomach against him, by the bulge of her pregnancy reminding him of how close she was to giving birth? Nya made a satisfied noise in the back of her throat.

"Kuy," she decided. Kai looked over her head at Cole. _He compelled her to know who I was. He compelled her to know I'm Kai, _he thought dimly, and mouthed, _Thank you. _

_I'll bill you, _Cole mouthed back, and smiled. He passed, clapping Kai on the shoulder, before he grabbed his own suitcase and disappeared. Kai pulled away to look at her. "Nya," he breathed. She squeezed him.

"Nuh-aye-ssssss to seeeeyyy yeewww." Nya drew out, only stopping to peer closely at his face. "Scarrrrr. _Like_." Kai laughed. _Nice to see you too, sis._ No matter if she could talk or not, he was content with just the sight of her. He would help her, too. Hell, he'd help _everyone. _It was one of the things you did for those you loved.

Love. The hairs on the back of Kai's neck stood up just in time.

Lloyd stepped out of the kitchen.

…

Misako hadn't noticed that Seiko and Bokuyo were missing until Damon righteously pointed it out five minutes after they were done packing the boys' bags into the silver mini-van next to the shiny black Ferrari. The rear lift-gate shut slammed shut under Misako's hands. She and Damon weren't going to take this one; they would be taking the dark-coated Jeep, parked slovenly on the side of the house. She supposed that Rikku would be driving the boys to the monastery in the minivan—unless they allowed Kai to do so. Danielle had already expressed that she would be driving the Ferrari. With Maya, as Misako thought. She hoped they'd make it back alive without killing each other.

"This isn't good," Damon muttered. His head swiveled in all directions searching for her. Thinking of it, Misako realized she hadn't seen the girl since they sent her to get dressed.

"Damon! Of course it's not good!" she shouted. At that moment, Danielle got Rikku to work again, having turned to look at them. Misako jogged across the dirty driveway towards him. The male robot was just buttoning up his shirt when she reached their company. "Seiko is missing," she breathed. She watched Danielle's face undergo multiple emotional transformations before landing, ultimately, on anger.

"FIND HER," Danielle growled. She whirled and stampeded into the house.

Rikku watched her go. "Moody," he breathed, and stomped down the stairs.

They called her name. Eventually, the shouts caught the attention of the boys, and they all three started calling for her too. It wasn't a shock that Maya just sat on the porch steps playing with a piece of grass, for she'd already conveyed how much she disliked her childish doppelganger. Misako moved across the lawn and called into the woods. _Please let her be near, _she thought when she saw Danielle appear out of the house, shaking her head frustratedly. The plan to leave was again destroyed by _something _going wrong… Misako's little dream home was starting to crumble, turning into a house of horrors rather than the sanctuary she fancied all her life. She ran towards the back of the house. Out the corner of her eye, Misako glimpsed Lloyd and Kai exiting the house.

Where _was _that girl? She was so small, she could hide _anywhere _and get away with it. Misako ran towards the small scatter of trees, thinking that maybe Seiko could've escaped through the trail in the woods behind their house. The woods were lovely, and dark, and deep, and Misako _knew _they could be inviting, but also lethal. She stepped into their cover with a feeling mumbling in the pit of her stomach. When they'd first bought this house, Misako had been _fascinated _by the trees. They were so beautiful. But deadly things hid within them. Could Seiko protect herself while so vulnerable?

She wasn't far into the path when she heard the sniffling. Misako rotated in all directions trying to find where it was coming from. "Seiko?" she asked. The woods responded with a groan. The wind was moving so heavily through the trees, it caused them to protest against it in whistles, in grumbling of old wood starting to bend. She tried not to think about being crushed by one and stepped further onto the path. Her tennis shoes crunched over the dead leaves under her feet. "Seiko? Sweetie, are you in here?"

There was an audible exhale. It sounded as though it came from behind Misako's ear. She spun quickly to find the space behind her empty. _The things, _she thought, frightened, _the things in the woods are here. _She'd told Lloyd, as a little boy, _never _to come in these woods. It was too dangerous. That fear faded over the years because no one had ever come back here. Now, that fear was nursed back into health at quick recovery when she remembered what dangers lurked within.

It was difficult to keep the waver out of her voice. "Seiko?" She asked. Her voice came out as a squeak.

It sounded like someone was sobbing. Misako turned her head towards where she thought it was coming from, but it was one of those noises that moved when you turned. Its clamor came from somewhere behind her, then. Shivers crawled up Misako's spine. Spiders, creeping across her skin—

"Mom?"

She screamed. Standing behind her, her son jumped backwards, startled. _Gosh. _Misako's heart thundered in her chest badly enough for her to have to bend over to catch her breath. His movements had been so silent, she hadn't even noticed him following her. "My word, Lloyd," she breathed, trying to pass it off with a little laugh. She was shaking. "You _scared _me!"

"Sorry," he said. His voice was raspier than normal. There wasn't time to ask why. He stepped forward and put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer, and Misako enjoyed the smell of him. He made her feel safer and more comforted. "Do you hear that? The crying."

"Yes," she whispered. She looked into the woods around her.

"Seiko," Lloyd called into the gloom. The sound of the crying worsened. _Oh, Seiko, if that's you, sweetie, _Misako thought worriedly, _you need to come out. Please? _"Seiko!" He unwrapped his arms from his mother's shoulders. The feeling of anxiety washed over her again. Lloyd's hands curled, and between them the conjure of green Power thrummed. "Stay close," he said.

"Definitely," Misako whispered, and Lloyd started forward.

Their feet scuffed the dead leaves scattered over the path. Surprisingly, grass didn't grow up over the dirt for the eight years it had been since anyone was back here. Misako should've paid more attention to it, but at the time didn't notice as much. The wind whistled through the trees another time. Lloyd turned to the left of the path. "Over there," he whispered, and moved closer to the sound of the sobbing. Misako didn't think that was the right spot, but she allowed him to do it anyway. The noise carried across the woodland path and bounced off the trees.

"Seiko?" Lloyd tentatively asked the air. Misako's eyes darted back and forth.

He peered around the cover of a tree, around its bushes of refuge. Misako peeked around him. She held her breath.

"_Seiko_," Lloyd breathed, relieved. A heaviness lifted from the air. His mother was impressed. He'd found her!

"Hey," he whispered softly. He bent down to kneel at her side. Seiko was pressed against the tree, her back to its rough trunk, knees pulled up to small mountains. In her arms, his cheek pressed to her chest, Bokuyo was fast asleep in the cover of his mother's arms. Misako would've thought it was a sweet sight, but she saw the tear streaked lines across the girl's pale white skin. Immediately, sympathy set in. _Oh, girl, _she thought softly, and her hands curled under her chin. "What's wrong, Seiko?"

Seiko turned her face away. Lloyd reached out a quiet hand. Misako had always known her son was gentle, but his movements were measured when he added around Seiko. Was it her instability? More than likely, that's what drove him to lay softly and firmly when he spoke. His fingertips gently touched her tear-stained cheek. "What's wrong? Hey, come on. You can tell me."

"I'm _fine, _Twinkies," she snapped. Paused. "Snickerdoodles. Whatever you are. I don't remember."

_No. _One of the symptoms of Arachnaeus was memory loss. Misako put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from saying anything, from making a noise. Lloyd didn't seem bothered that his designated nickname was forgotten, but he should've been concerned. Then again, he didn't know she was infected…Was it dangerous for him to touch her? Misako reached out a hand to stop him, but then refrained. There was something about touching her…that made her expression change. She decided to wait just a couple moments more. Lloyd's fingertips drew across her cheek again. Every stroke brought Seiko's shoulders relaxing a little. She sniffled.

"If you're fine, why are you all the way out here, crying, then?" he asked. Seiko turned her face away.

"Shut up. Questions are stupid."

"So is your argument. You can tell me."

Something about their interaction reminded Misako of best friends. But she knew Lloyd's best friend was Kai, certainly _not _this young, emotional girl. It was more of a descriptor, really, but entirely accurate in any case. Seiko sniffled and rested her head backwards against the tree trunk again. "It's not worth explaining."

Lloyd sat down in the grass beside her. He pulled up his knees and settled his elbows against them. A voice in her head told Misako to be sure to keep her distance. She hovered, but didn't intervene. "I think the same thing, a lot. That talking about your feelings is stupid. But it's not. It helps, you know, to say it." Lloyd pulled up a piece of grass. Seiko sniffled and rubbed her nose with her sleeve. "But it's okay. I want to know."

"No, you don't. It's just…stupid drama that's pointless to say." Seiko absentmindedly stroked the fine hairs of Bokuyo's golden head, pressed against her chest. He looked happy just to be curled around her, arms wrapped around her body. So contrastive to his mother. Seiko curled her fingers around his ear. Misako watched silently. She noticed Lloyd looking down at him, too, arms dangling between his legs. There was something distant in his eyes.

"So then…what about Bokuyo?" Lloyd gestured to the boy. "It doesn't look to me like you're being, um, _disproving _anymore."

Seiko looked down at him. Another wave of tears escaped her eyes. "I decided I didn't want to be a shitty parent like my father is," she said flatly. "I didn't want him to suffer the way I did."

Lloyd nodded quietly. "That would make sense. I think you'll do fine."

Seiko looked at him. Her face was amused, despite the tears. "Me? Do fine? On _mothering? _No."

Lloyd shrugged. "You're, what, sixteen? No one expects you to be perfect at everything."

"I'm fifteen, and my father does," Seiko responded. Lloyd's head snapped up.

"_Only fifteen?" _He repeated incredulously. Seiko nodded. "Jeez." He picked up another hunk of grass. Seiko narrowed her eyes.

"What's wrong with fifteen?" she asked.

"Well…you're _younger _than I thought you were." Lloyd shook his head. "I thought you were way older than me."

"Yeah, well. Not really." She leaned her head back against the tree. "I think you're more mature than I _ever _will be. I'm just…a stupid kid. A stupid little girl with stupid issues." Misako sensed something deep. Her pride was hurt.

"Who said you were stupid?" Lloyd asked sincerely. Seiko turned her eyes on him.

"_Stupid _is putting it lightly. That word wasn't even used to describe me." She gave a humorless laugh and looked away again. "It's harder to say _whore _than it is to say _stupid." _

Misako stifled a gasp. _Whore? _No. _No. _She _hated _that word!

"A _whore? _Seriously? Who called you that?" Lloyd asked. He looked angry, leaning forward and honestly demanding of her the culprit.

For once, Seiko looked irrefutably uncomfortable. She looked down at Bokuyo's head and stroked away at his hair. "It's never just one person," she admitted slowly, "but this time it was Maya."

Misako was amazed at the change in Lloyd's face. He looked excessively livid. He tore the chunk of grass in his hands apart to two pieces. There was something within him that snapped with it, and he dropped the grass chunks. He reached forward to grab Seiko's hand. The girl glanced up, astounded and dumbfounded in chorus. "Don't believe that crap," he said gruffly. "I was bullied at Darkley's by this kid named Finn. He put me down _all _the time. He called me names constantly. Everything I thought imaginable. But calling you a _whore _is over the line—you're _not _a whore. The people who call you that stuff are just trying to get the satisfaction of winning out of you because _they _feel like dirt and want you to feel worse so they feel better. And Maya is just a cranky, all-around bitch who can't keep her _own _track record on straight." Lloyd squeezed her fingers. Seiko's eyebrows raised. "Don't you listen to her. Don't _let _her get to you. Then she wins. I fought off Finn and _I _won. Unless you can't do it, of course."

Misako didn't quite understand the meaning of the last part until Seiko's face hardened determinedly. "What, don't think I can do it?" she asked. Misako realized that Lloyd was using Seiko's own faults against her. Her determination to do whatever males could was normally both her downfall _and _her uprising. Lloyd's lips twisted into a smile.

"Oh, I _know _you can. But are you up for the challenge?"

_Bingo. _The challenge. _That_ was what made Seiko believe. A _challenge_ made her try. "Yes!" she said deeply. "Of course I am!"

Misako noticed he was still holding her hand. His fingers curled through hers, interlocking them deep enough to where they wouldn't let go of each other for the whole walk home. Lloyd pulled her hand into his lap and grinned. "Now, let's go show her who the hell is boss, Seiko." This, too, was a tactic to get her to the house so they could leave. Misako proudly smiled. Lloyd was cleverer than she thought he was. There were some things—like that—that Misako missed out on, the things she wished that she was there for. As a mother she regretted missing them every day. But she also knew that because of it, Lloyd was stronger.

Seiko patted Bokuyo to grab his attention. The little boy groggily muttered something and buried his face deeper into her chest. "Let's go, _kid!" _Seiko roused him. He whimpered.

"Not yet Momma. Too tired."

Seiko groaned impatiently. "Dude. I'm _not _sitting in the woods for hours. We need to—"

"I got this," Lloyd said confidently. Without saying much, Lloyd bent down and curled his hands around the little boy's waist. Gently, he lifted him into the air, like a helicopter rescuing a victim of disaster, pulling him quietly into his arms to hold him. Bokuyo's small head rested against Lloyd's leather clad shoulder. On the forest floor, Seiko stared in awe and bewilderment. A light dawned on her face that Misako hadn't seen there before; it was the sight of Lloyd holding her son that made her face turn so rapt. Misako knew she herself was impressed by it. Bokuyo didn't even open his eyes. A moment later, Seiko scrambled to her feet and dusted off the bottom her loose jeans.

"Let's, um, go," she said awkwardly. Lloyd smiled at her and trotted along. It took the young girl a moment to process how her feet worked. Misako smiled and wrapped her arm around Seiko's waist. They both watched Lloyd go for a moment, with Bokuyo's tiny cheek resting against his shoulder, silently asleep without protest.

It's just one of those things you do for the people you care about.

* * *

**Next chapter: **Think: _on the road again...I can't wait to get on the road again...XD_ Isn't that Willie Nelson? i think it is. Either way, the Ninja are FINALLY LEAVING! The monastery is only a chapter away, as are the _shinobi. _Yay! XD

**Anyway, go have an AWESOME day/night, and don't forget to leave me a review! :3** It's greatly appreciated! Thank you!

~Kairi


	34. Chapter 34

**A/N:  
GAAAHHHH! YOUTUBE WAS FINALLY UPDATED! YAY! Go check out the new 2 score pieces, thanks to Emi! "A Vampire Lust/Cole's Uncontrollable Instincts" and "How Do I Know What to Believe Anymore?" have been uploaded! Please go check them out! Oh, and since Emiko is so cool, for "How do I know What to believe Anymore?" She had the background alternating colors for the Ninja. HOW COOL IS THAT! So please go check it out 'cause she spent a lot of time on it this afternoon! Thanks!**

* * *

**CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR:  
**Unconquerable Power

"I am not amused," Eloquim spluttered again. Noel had been hearing such for the past fourteen minutes, and he wasn't enjoying the repetition. With the suns nearly "set" and the sky a deeper red than normal, the Shadow Dancer was able to hide in the shadow of a deadwood tree, corpsed over the running blue water like the dead skeleton of a man in mid-pose before death ate him. Noel sited himself ashore at the very edge of the bridge, where he adroitly juggled a Dapplejuno between his hands. Unpoisoned, of course, and for his friend. His friend, who hated sunlight probably more than he hated the Ninja, specifically Noel's brother, Kai. Eloquim buried himself shoulder deep within the murky waters. He refused to lift himself further.

This, Noel had to admit, was the first time that he ever had seen Eloquim's face. The creature was usually hidden underneath a cloak of black that, rather than absorbing the sun's rays, reflected them. But since his death and "restoration," as King Elathan had once referred it as, the Dancer had come revived without any worldly possessions. _When a Shadow Dancer dies, _his father had told him when he was young, _they don't really die. The majority of them live in the Upperworld, in Aboveground. If they die on the human plane, they return soon after their death in _our _world: the Underworld, the Kingdom of Death. This is where all monsters come when they die. Because—_

_Because no monster actually dies! _Noel remembered reciting excitedly, hoping to earn a rewarding smile on his father's face, but Elathan rarely smiled. He'd merely nodded. And living with the King of the Underworld, it wasn't just of his father's lack of positive emotion that Noel learned about. He'd witnessed multiple times the return—the "restoration"—of monsters into his world. It's where the countless Minotaurs, centaurs, satyrs, chimaera, demons, and otherwise came from. There initially never _was _a Hell. Not until a religious idol—who came by many names in all different human religions, so Noel wasn't sure what his real name was—created a Heaven, to be opposed by a Hell. It was where demons of the earth were banished. But not all the demons acceded to the quiet depths of the Underneath, the Underworld, the Hell. It was proven that some lingered Aboveground, and they were the ones that started the demonic presences of Earth, the spark that ignited the fire. When they were vanquished, they found themselves reawakening in this place. A place inhabited by two suns, endless deserts stretched across an unattainable amount of land, that grayed into the darker half of the Underworld. That half was peopled by rock-creatures and sculpted by mountains. He'd never been there—the land that Elathan had ruled, the land of the reddened rock—before, but he didn't know that he wanted to. Being the ruler of _all _of the Underworld, as desirable as that may be, would be like having one leader for all of Earth. It was difficult. That was why Noel ruled his one sector. The Kingdom of Death. The darker kingdom—his far away neighbor—was the Kingdom of Blackened Ash. Noel's father had named them all to him, once, but he couldn't remember anything but the black kingdom. (He thought that was the one that Garmadon had once ruled, but he couldn't be sure.)

Eloquim's restored body bobbed wholly between the broken surface of cold water and hot, pungent air. Looking at him, Noel could understand why he wanted to stay hidden for so long. He wasn't an attractive fellow. The creature's face was lathered in scales, of black sheen and obviously bleeding a sweat-like ooze. His face protruded into a _short_, stubbed snout like a mongrel's, where the scales faded into a rough, feathery overcoat. Teeth as large and pointed as finely-crafted daggers hung over thick black lips. His eyes were bug-like and completely green, lacking human whites, and larger than any normal pair of eyes. Almost like a fly's eyes. Tiny octagons seemed to shape their protruding ball. His nose looked like a wolf's. Black. Shiny. Wet and snotted. His hands were like human hands, except for where his fingertips should've existed they tapered into tissue and thick, black claws as long as a man's hand. (Noel's father used to say if you caught a Shadow Dancer's claw, great rule would come to your favor.) His chest fell into a normal man's chest, thinning into black fur, from what Noel could see of it. And all down his back and scattered over his shoulders were, sized as tall as Noel's pinky, black spikes. If he looked hard enough into the water with thick concentration, he could just barely make out the swimming _swish, swish _of the Dancer's long, reptile tail.

He was ugly. Noel wasn't going to lie. He was devastatingly ugly. It made his eyes want to throw up. If Noel looked like Eloquim did, he would want to hide under a cloak all the time, too.

"I kid you not, dear comrade," Noel answered. He passed the Dapplejuno between his hands without juggling it this time. He watched the creature's broad eyes follow the path the mysterious fruit made between his palms. He knew that his friend must be hungry. Which, if he wanted to eat, he'd have to categorize himself as Noel's friend. Knowing he had the upper hand, the new King stopped tossing the 'juno back and forth to stare at the Dancer. "It is Kaos the Deadly you have to fear now."

"You are lying," growled Eloquim in his breathless, choked voice. He looked at the Dapplejuno again. "I'm not amused. Quit playing games."

"I do not play games," Noel answered. "Kaos has taken over your clan of subjects. You picked a bunch that doesn't quite enjoy to stand alone. They turned to the first leader that arose, and, well, I can't say I don't agree with his tactics more than—sorry, mate—I favored yours. You see, he is not intent on _just _retrieving the Shadow Key and unloading the Underworld into Earth. He wants to make it more…_homey _before he allows us inside. Do you understand what I mean?" With that, anticipating a more dramatic twist, Noel slowly turned and began to pace. He tossed the Dapplejuno into the air. Worriedly, as Noel walked along the bank, the Dancer moved through the water to follow him. _I suspect he chose the river because it is dark, the best place for a Dancer to hide in a world with doubly amounts of sunlight. _Noel pursed his lips and continued. "You see, if _you _were to have completed your task, we would've been faced with this _ugly _universe full of people at the mercy of technology that I _could not _withstand. Kaos…well, he has decided to make it more like the Underworld first. He's creating _wormholes. _Wormholes! Dispatching them all across the continent to make the _Yami no sutā. _Or, to you, possibly the _Hēi'àn zhī xīng." _Noel smiled bitterly, turning to face Eloquim again. The creature cocked his head. "Not only that, but he's willing to revive the dark island to its _better _of constructions. With a tad bit of magical advance, of course."

"Magical advance," repeated Eloquim dubiously. He swam backwards to follow Noel. _It's like I have a starved wolf at my presence, _he thought. "Kaos. Taking _my _place as the Deadly. Do those imbeciles know what they're getting themselves into? That creature is _nothing _but destruction. Whatever happened to my Beta? What happened to Elomne?"

Noel tilted his head. He peered down at the Dapplejuno and plucked at the fine hairs growing off its thick, pinkish skin. "I don't suppose Kaos was in the mood for dueling over rank positions," Noel said without looking up. His voice came distantly.

The water rushed around Eloquim's abdomen as he thrust himself upwards out of the water. The fur against his abdomen clung to his black scales. Noel took a step backwards. The Dancer's claws spread out across the thin white grass, and his biceps bulged from holding up his weight. "WHAT are you SAYING?" He growled angrily. Noel barely blinked.

"I think I'm saying what you _know _I'm saying," he said. He didn't feel like asking if anyone was home. "I don't believe Kaos was going to battle for control. I think he did what any desperate wannabe did, and used a little _force." _

"Elomne would've fought back," Eloquim protested angrily. He settled back into the water, this time letting the water swallow him to his chin. The bug's eyes stared straight into Noel. He suppressed a shiver. "There isn't any way he would've given up the throne so quietly."

"Mmm. Perhaps it was only quiet because Elomne didn't see it _coming."_

He watched understanding dawn on Eloquim's face. The creature stared into the depths of the water before he finally dove into its captivity. Noel waited patiently. He actually didn't know if the Shadow Dancer would come back up. Typically, this is what Noel predicted would happen, because as far as he knew Elomne was a grave friend of his. He examined his gloves for a moment. While he was mentioning all of this in an _assuming _tone, tacitly configuring his words, he knew for a fact that Elomne was a creature unamongst the living. Kaos, from what Noel knew of him, was not merciful. He was wretched enough to consume and suffice.

Suddenly, from the depths of the everneath, the Shadow Dancer burst from the water. His head broke the surface and sent rivulets of water spraying across the surface. Ripples coursed into massive waves as Eloquim lifted his tail and slapped it against the exterior. Noel jumped back. It seemed to be a bit of a _tantrum _the monster was throwing. But instead, he found the long claws gripping the edge of the river again, his eyes wider than before, and his snout borne into a scowl that doomed those who opposed him. His face twisted into a visceral image that would give humans nightmares. _That must've been what made him so appealing to the Dancer community, _Noel thought, smirking. That ferocity was just what he needed for his units. _I wonder if Kaos matched this, or if he used force on the community as he would've to Elomne. _

Elomne. The name, even, sounded familiar on Noel's lips.

"YOU SAID MAGICAL ADVANCE," Eloquim yelled. Noel raised an eyebrow. _Does he have to be so loud? _"WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?"

"You must be used to getting your way," Noel said conversationally. He met the monster's green gaze without pausing. "Because that is no way to speak to your King."

Eloquim ducked deeper into the water again. This time, his snout completely submerged underneath the water, leaving the tip of his wide head and fat eyes to stare into Noel's soul. He looked rather silly, like a child cringing after their parents yelled at them for doing something erroneous. But he knew better than to think that Eloquim was cowering because he was afraid of Noel. He was simply waiting.

"Magical advance," persisted the Dancer again after Noel was silent. His head popped out of the water for the words to be spat, then ducked back under again. The King sighed. _I have to do this even if he's being disrespectful, _he thought. _Otherwise, he will not join my units, and I will have nothing. _

"Kaos seeks the one who has the power to simply _undo _what has been already _done," _Noel started, but was sorely interrupted.

"WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN!"

"If you keep screaming, I'll be forced to shove this Dapplejuno down your throat until your esophagus is clogged with seeds of doom," Noel patiently replied, as if he were speaking to a child. The creature embarked underneath the water again. He disappeared completely for a few moments before returning into sight a few feet away, but his eyes had never left Noel's body. "Now. Where was I? You had the power to make things return from defeat—but only on _your _life support? As in, using _your _life force, _your _magic-eloquim? Am I correct in saying that?"

The Shadow Dancer gave a grunt in response.

"You see, Kaos is _far _stronger than you. While you had the ability to revive the defeated, he has the ability to create images, pictures, hallucinations of sorts that seem ultimately real and can last for however long, to whom, and to how many people he chooses. His power revolves around the state of _mind. _Those with strong self-confidence and control are less easy to manipulate, but nonetheless conquerable. Those who don't…well, they are the _easiest _to seduce. Images, pictures, sounds, false interactions with mirages—that is all the basis of Kaos's work. But I'm sure you knew that. You led him once, did you not?" Noel rubbed his leather gloves together, stepping forward from the shadow of a warped deadwood to look the swirling creature in the eye. Eloquim moved like the human's crocodiles do in the swamps. "But even Kaos's powers are limited. He cannot just simply _erase _what has been done. Although that certainly isn't the basis of the plot in his mind, it plays a factor." Eloquim released a growl of bubbles from his mouth. Noel simpered again. "Kaos wants to control _all _of Ninjago. I'm sure you already knew that, too. That means, especially the dark island. But since the Overlord's defeat—poor creature, may he rest peacefully in the Kingdom of Blackened Ash—there has been no one _able _to find this island. Researchers, philosophers, scientists—it has just ceased to exist. But Kaos can sense it. It is still out there…It's just _hidden. _And plus, no one even knows how the Ninja got there anyway. They swam on their swimming contraption for endless days and nights and flew on it and _Elathan _knows what else—but that's beside the point. What the point _is _is that there are things on that island that can overthrow that pesky peaceful side forever. But those monsters only come out, only react to one thing, and one thing only. And that is their leader. Their _ruler_."

"So Kaos plans to rule them," Eloquim stated.

"Yes. But he is not the ruler."

"You have lost me."

Noel held out his hand. The Dapplejuno still sat there. He saw the monster rise further from the depths of the river in hunger, in anticipation. He smiled. "I'd prefer not to speak down on you, brother," he said softly. Eloquim grumbled for a moment, swirled back and forth through the water. Noel didn't waver holding out his hand. And finally, after a long debate, Eloquim sprung out of the water, snatched the Dapplejuno, and collapsed underneath the shade of a deadwood, all within a matter of three seconds. Noel stood there still for a moment even after the Dapplejuno was gone, holding out his hand like it was still there. The creature's legs were shaped like a horse's legs, but at the end they acquired human feet with long claws like those on his hands. His legs were black and scaled, and his reptile's tail curled around his ankles. The wolfish hair spread across his chest clumped and dripped.

Noel coughed. "You are not as attractive as I would've expected," he commented.

"Bite me." Eloquim, using both hands, shoved his snout into the Dapplejuno. Juice squirted out of the succulent fruit's guts and spilled over his claws and face. The sticky sap poured down his forearms with just that one bite. Eloquim looked blissful and tilted his head backwards to relish the taste in his mouth.

Noel flopped down on the grass beside the Shadow Dancer. _Look what's become of you, _he found himself thinking almost sadly. _You let yourself disappear so completely…and all for nothing. _Eloquim stuffed his face into another bite. "I see you're enjoying yourself, brother."

"Do _not _call me brother," snapped the monster around a mouthful of food. _Poor manners, _Noel noted. "We are not brothers."

"Yes, we are, as much as you despise admitting it." Noel leaned his back against a deadwood. It groaned against his cape. "You may be able to hide from who you truly are physically, but my blood is the same as yours. Your father is mine. Your mother is mine. We are one."

Eloquim scowled into the bite marks of his fruit. "I lost being your brother when I abandoned you fools for power. I have no quarrel with you. I beg you leave me be, _King." _Eloquim spat the last word and buried his face into another bite.

Noel curled his fingers around each other good-naturedly. "And look where that selfish journey got you. Banished by your own father, scorned by your own mother, and turned by the Devil into a creature doomed to stick into the shadows." Noel gestured to his brother's disgusting body with one hand. Eloquim didn't look at him. "That's a wonderful life to live, Silas."

At the sound of his birth name, Eloquim jumped suddenly. "DON'T EVEN!" He shouted, spitting on Noel with the remnants of Dapplejuno juice spread over his black lips. His face masked into that deep, hateful scowl. His claws across his feet dug into the ground, and he turned his back on his brother, even though he didn't come to accept Noel as such anymore. "Tell me about this ruler before you get gushy on me and start talking about the beauty of brotherhood. I will hear none of it. I do not want to hear about it. Silas is gone. He's _been _gone. He isn't returning. That is that. Now. The ruler?"

Noel sighed. "Right. The ruler." He turned away. "There is only one powerful enough to command the hidden creatures of the Dark Island into arousal. And that is a creature that can undo what has already been done. To…_erase _things, of sorts." Noel thought for a moment. "A creature who can bend darkness at will. Who can force the elements into nonexistence. Who can create _chaos _by creating _nothing." _Noel reached down and ripped a piece of white grass out of the ground. It wrapped around his finger, so easily, so daintily, like Kaos could wrap humans around his. "A creature…a nothingness so empty, there is nothing within…a Void." At the word, Silas—er, Eloquim started to turn around again. His movements were slow, but Noel knew he was capturing his brother's attention. He watched the green bug eyes visibly throb into his own. He tried to kill the shivers threatening to swallow him completely. "The Void is all that can control the Dark Island, brother. It is complete darkness. _Total _darkness. Emptiness within nothing. It is the ruler. The Void is the key."

This time, Eloquim was too stunned to protest to his proper title. "But…the tales I have heard, the philosophers, the professors—they all claimed the Blind One. Every last one of them." He turned fully now, poised on one knee propped up. Noel stared unblinking into his eyes.

"Don't you see, brother? _There is no difference." _Noel slowly sat up. "They are the same. The Blind One. The Void. _The Yin." _Eloquim stared at him, aghast. With excitement of the topic, Noel sprung to his feet, staring down at the Shadow Dancer and gesturing madly with his hands. "The Dark Island—It can only be commanded by _true _darkness, and Void is the highest form of pure dark you can _get. _The Yin. The Yin is the Dark Island, Eloquim—the Yin is what controls _itself! _And with the Void, it will consume everything it needs to—it has _no weaknesses. _It is _unstoppable. _If Kaos can get his hands on the Void, he can defeat the Ninja, Ninjago—everything will be _ours. _He will open the Gate and we will be _free." _Noel watched his brother slowly stand, the excitement growing within his heart. Eloquim looked stunned, rather abashed by the fact that this was all finally coming together. It was what they needed to hear. This would be their ultimate arrival, the destruction of earth—it was what every good king dreamed of. Eloquim's claws dug into the ground in anticipation. "The Void is the ultimate weapon. It can't be defeated, Eloquim. It is _unstoppable." _

"But where would he find the Void?" Eloquim asked. His feet shuffled across the ground like he was ready to start running. The excitement of this was far too great. "If it is that powerful, it would be hiding. It wouldn't sit in plain sight."

"Ah," Noel chuckled, "that's where you're wrong."

He reached into his pocket, feeling for the smooth plastic wrap he'd plucked off the ground earlier. The unblemished surface touched his gloves, and he smiled. He held out the small wristband towards the ancient Shadow Dancer, who reached out and plucked it from his fingers to stare hard at the small software print across the tag. "Seiko," he read underneath his breath, and a noise came from the back of his throat. "Seiko Mitsuhide." He raised his face towards his brother. Noel saw the glimmer of recognition in his eyes. _So he _does_ remember, _he thought triumphantly. "So Kaos plans on luring this foolish girl into his grasp? How?"

Noel readjusted the cuffs of his gloves as he spoke. "I hear she has a fancy for the Garmadon boy," Noel said with a grin. A smile spread across Eloquim's muzzle. "I think Kaos has quite the plan to lure her away, but that is beside the point. I have a better one."

"Oh?" Eloquim tilted his head.

Noel nodded. "Oh, of course, brother." He saw Eloquim's face darken. He continued quickly before he could be stopped. "It has a little something to do with a hidden passage in the _Under_world that leads into the _Upper_world. It's been a secret all these years, but I have quite the assumption for you and I…I think we should go pay a visit to this _portal _and see what lies on the other _side. _After all, I don't plan on letting Kaos rule that whole world on his _own. _Or, frankly, _at all." _He watched an approving smile spread across the black lips of his brother's face. "That Void will be _mine _before the next full moon_."_

"A race against time," Eloquim said aloud, more to himself, but Noel shook his head.

"No," he said. He ignored the look of inquisition coming from the Shadow Dancer's mutilated face. "A race for the Void. The winner gets the _world_."

"Well, well, little brother," Eloquim grinned, showing every even row of fangs inside of his mouth, pointed and stained by the blood of his enemies. Noel tried to contain himself from the fact that Eloquim just called him _brother. _After the fuss he'd made about it… "It looks like you've really outdone yourself this time." He laced together his clawed fingers. A dark look passed over his face, the look of _I-can't-be-beat. _Noel recognized it because he saw it in the mirror every day. "This should be _wonderful _fun, shouldn't it?"

Noel grinned darkly alongside him. "Indeed, brother." He looked down at the wristband that Eloquim had passed back. _Seiko…_She would be his. Her _power _would be his. No matter _what _it took. Lives…OR family. Noel would give it all up—would give up Eloquim, the idiotic fool who thought they were going to make an _alliance—_in a heartbeat if it meant he got the world in return. He stared deeper into the printed word and felt a devilish grin sort across his tan face. No matter what it took—_That girl will be mine, _he thought_. _"In_deed._" _This, I SWEAR. _

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**Did anyone notice** in chapter 33 that **Kai finally** got that **scar **on the **left side **of his face that's on the **minifigure but not in the show**? ^-^ (And that's the story about how the Fire ninja got his scar, kids!)

**See any familiar names/terms today? **Like...**Elomne? **Why does that sound so familiar? ;P And what about something about the blind person...HMMMMM

**NFAN CONTEST: **Thanks to all of you who have already submitted! I'm trying my hardest to get your "prizes" done- and to those of you who are working on your entry, strive, strive strive! Deadline is coming sometime by this next month!

**BURNING FAN QUESTION MUST ANSWER****_:_****  
Who do you want to read about next out of the following:  
**A) Kaos, Kayus, and the dead Bizarro (ARE they dead? XD) (Kai: Yes, stupid, cuz I killed one)  
B) the _Shinobi,  
_C) A Flashback about Cole, Maya, Seiko, and the night that Cole was turned into a vampire

**SORRY NO NINJA. -.- **Not yet. There are things with the above that need to be clarified first.

**As always, go have an AWESOME day/night, and we'll see you right back here next time!**

**-Kairi**


	35. Chapter 35

**A/N:**

This chapter isn't really A, B, or C...I'm having trouble writing the letter I picked. Then someone asked me why Maya hates Seiko, and I was like, "Hmmm, maybe I should do a chapter on that!" So here's a mini-chappie from Maya's POV (**I know, I know...We all hate her**) But I wanted to get this out, and you can look for B or C (whichever, it's amystery! XD) when I post it, hopefully finished by this afternoon. Thanks for being so tolerant!

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**CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE:  
**I Hate You, Seiko

_Hate._

Hate.

_What a funny word._

_Hate. _

_Just saying it is silly. _

_Hate. _

_It rhymes with Kate._

_Kate hates her date._

_With a rake. _

_No, that doesn't rhyme._

_Kate hates her date who wants to mate._

_That's better._

_Hate. _

_Kate hates her date who wants to mate living on a lake with a rake. _

_Well, that kind of rhymes._

_Huh. _

_Hate. _

_What a silly word._

_"I hate you."_

_Who came up with that? _

_Hate?_

_Who decided that the opposite of love is hate?_

_Who decided the opposite of hate is love?_

_Why call it love? _

_Why not call it…Grapes?_

_Kate hates her date who brought grapes hanging on a rake because he wants to mate by the lake. _

_What is 'love'?_

_Do I love anyone? _

_I know I hate people. I hate them a LOT. _

_That's why I kill them. _

_Like Lucia Mitsuhide. _

_I hated her. Hated her with everything inside of me._

_So I killed her._

_Huh. Hate._

_Funny._

_I know who I hate most. _

_I hate Seiko. _

_Piece of worthless nothing. _

_Why does she even exist?_

_God. I hate her._

_She needs to die._

_If I hate her, why don't I kill her? _

_She's tried to kill me twice._

_She has everything I don't._

You idiot, she has nothing.

_That's not true. She has Cole. She has friends._

You'd have friends if you weren't so evil.

_Who the hell asked you?_

You did.

_No. I didn't. _

You said 'why don't I kill her?' I'm you, you fool.

_Yeah, that DISGUSTING part of me. You're _HIS _fault. _

_…I hate you. _

You hate yourself?

_Shut the hell up. _

_That little disgusting creature. I told her I'd kill her when I turned her brother._

And how'd that turn out for you?

_Fuck you. _

_She needs to die._

_No one would ever know she's dead._

_Maybe except that stupid Garmadon boy. And Cole._

_She has everything I don't. _

_She has a kid. She has a little baby, and she didn't even know she had one until today, but she still has one, and I don't. _

_I want one. _

_But Cole won't GIVE me one._

_How can I continue my race if the ONE PERSON I HUNG MY HAT ON WON'T GIVE ME MY HAT BACK?!_

_I WANT my fucking hat back. _

_I should kill her._

_Hate._

_Hate, hate._

_I want him. I want Cole, and I want the attention, and I want a baby. I. Want. One. _

_I want what she has. _

_I want to be loved by them. Loved by them ALL. I want my revenge on her for stealing MY life. It was MINE, DAMNIT. _

_I HAD IT. _

_But she _stole _it. _

_I had everything._

_Everything until Katherine. _

_Goddamned Original Witch. _

_I had the life that stupid little doppelganger whore had. I had that._

_But that GODDAMNED WITCH stole it._

_She wanted to try and see if she could make an immortal. _

_An immortal with a price._

_Ha. A price._

_So she stole me. _

_Me! Of all people!_

_She stole me. _

_Killed me. _

_Put a spell on me._

_BROUGHT ME BACK. _

_FOREVER._

_Hate. _

_I hate Katherine._

_I hate her so much._

_I can't be killed. _

_I am invincible._

_Undefeatable. _

_I can't die._

_No matter what you do to me._

_So to create a balance, because all witches' magic is based on nature, and all nature has balance—I mean, just look at that little Garmadon prick, the Yang, and that little _bitch, _the Yin—_

_Katherine had to make a version of me that COULD die. _

_A shadow self. _

_A doppelganger._

_Thus that little Mitsuhide disgusting piece of crap was born._

_My doppelganger._

_And Katherine, that Witch, killed my family._

_She made sure I was alone._

_Forever._

_And I can only create ONE vampire. I only had enough venom in my fangs to make ONE. She made sure that multiplying would be difficult._

_I hate her._

_I made Cole._

_Does he still have venom?_

_I don't think so. He wasted most of it on that dumb mute girl. _

_Nya._

_I hate her, too._

_Cole loves her._

_But he doesn't love me._

_How can't he love me?_

_We were supposed to be together forever._

_I can have a child. ONE child. If I have it with him, it will be a complete vampire._

_Then, my baby could create one OTHER vampire._

_I just need Cole for that. _

_I hate him when he doesn't listen._

_But I love him. _

_Love. _

_There it is again. _

_But I know I do._

_I love him. _

_So much it hurts._

_GOD._

_Hate._

_I hate that stupid Seiko. _

_She gets the human life I never did. She gets what I DIDN'T._

Why do you hate her?

_Have you been LISTENING?!_

Sort of. You're confusing.

_I hate her. _

I realize that…

_Katherine created her so that I would have a shadow self. So I had a doppelganger._

Gotcha.

_A version of me that could be killed._

Right.

_While I'm here, stuck at nineteen, never growing, never able to reach twenty, never able to move on. I only get one chance at having a companion with me forever. Cole. I tried to have him. I didn't get him. I only get one chance to have a baby, one chance at that, but it has to be a FULL VAMPIRE. I don't have any options. But she, she has EVERYTHING. Every piece, every hope, every chance, every option. And what do I have? A lousy handful of _ones _instead of every option I _should _have. I had my options stolen from me by that lousy witch—and for what? An eternity of suffering? GOD. I hate her._

_I HATE her. _

_I hate Katherine for taking my options from me._

_I hate Seiko for GETTING my options._

_I hate her for being my doppelganger._

_I hate her for, even though we have the same exact face, being prettier than me._

_I hate that she has a son._

_I hate that the stupid Green Ninja will protect her from anything without even being asked, no matter how many times she tells him to leave her alone._

_I hate that even though we DO have the same face, Cole loves her, but he hates me._

_I hate Kai._

_I hate Danielle._

_I hate that I have lived all these centuries and not once was I able to live._

_I hate that all my life I've spent it running._

_I hate that I'll never die. _

_I hate that Seiko has everything I don't._

_I hate her. _

_I hate her SO MUCH._

_I wish she'd die. _

_I wish I could kill her._

_I wish that she would just disappear._

_I wish I could take her and wring her neck and destroy her completely._

_I wish I could suck her dry. _

_I wish she was hated._

_I WISH I COULD KILL HER._

_…_Maya stopped to think for a moment. Then a smile spread across her lips.

_Maybe I can. _

"MAYA!"

She turned at the yell of her voice. It was Danielle. She saw the Jeep retreating down the driveway with Misako and Garmadon inside of it; the minivan with the three forgetful Ninja and Rikku inside was just pulling out of the parking space. The sleek black car she'd be riding in with the goody-two-shoes was humming. Maya's eyes moved towards the dark blue car that Danielle had brought in a few minutes ago. She watched Kai open the driver's door. _They're driving alone, _she thought, tilting back her chin to observe. Lloyd was throwing open the passenger's side. And _she, _the doppelganger, that stupid bitch, was walking with her son towards the back. _I wonder why Sweet Dani wants them to drive alone, _she thought, and stood, forcing herself to remain balanced on her high heels. Maya had sat on the porch for the past fifteen minutes, and now her butt hurt terribly badly. The gravel crunched underneath her shoes as she slowly walked towards Dani's car, but the whole time her black eyes were settled on Seiko. She watched Lloyd standing with the car door open, his hand clasping the top of it, but he watched Seiko gently urge Bokuyo into the backseat. She seemed unaware that he was waiting for her. Maya narrowed her eyes. The look on his face, the grim protectiveness, made her hate both of them more. _I hate you for caring, _Maya thought.

The exact same time she thought it, he looked at her.

His eyes masked over. He looked cruelly into her face, and Maya knew that poor little Seiko had tattled on her for the nasty things she'd said to her. _Oh, well, _Maya thought, and allowed herself to smile grimly in his direction. She raised her hand and wiggled her fingers antagonizingly. _At least she knows how I really feel. _Lloyd's eyes narrowed. He didn't even notice that Sweet Little Seiko had gotten into the car.

Maya made it to the passenger side of Danielle's car, and threw open the door. She slipped inside and squished down onto the leather comfort of the interior. The door slammed behind her.

She felt a hand clamp down on her arm when she reached for her buckle. Maya whirled. Danielle glared into her eyes. "I swear to god," hissed the robot, "if you do _anything _to hurt my son, _I _will be the one to break that spell and kill your ass for _good." _Maya was taken aback. Even as Danielle let her go and reached for the ignition. She barely even noticed that Kai had backed the blue car out of the driveway. Danielle turned around in her seat to look at where she was going; without looking at Maya, she said, "And that goes for _everyone else, _too. I will not have you destroying these people because you've already destroyed yourself."

"What the hell does _that _mean?" Maya spat.

"I think you know _exactly _what I mean," Danielle said as the car started to pull out of the driveway. Maya glared at her, but she had nothing on the robot. "I mean it. I will reverse the spell that brought you to life and _DESTROY _you if you so much as lay a _HAND _on him."

"If you say so," Maya said, crossing her arms and leaning back in the seat as Danielle sped off down the highway. _But that doesn't apply to doppelgangers, now does it? _She thought. _I will KILL that sonofabitch if I have to. She will NEVER last a week in that monastery. _

_EVER. _

_I'll kill her slowly. Painfully._

_But she'll _never _see it coming._

_I hate her._

_Hate._

_What a funny word._

_Just four letters, but carries a lifetime of reasons why I should kill her. _

_And I will._

Maya stared at the horizon for a minute.

_And I want my fucking hat back._

* * *

**So thanks for being so tolerant! **I hope I may have answered that question for some of you. ^-^

By the way, Maya, we all hate you, too. :P

**Go have an AWESOME day/night, and I'll see you right back here next time! (And reviews never hurt!)**

**~Kairi**


	36. Chapter 36

**EdgeChronicles01: **I'll answer your questions in the order you gave them: **1)** That will be revealed. **2)** That will be revealed**. 3)** Maya did answer this in the chapter. Seiko is Maya's shadow is the doppelganger to the Original Vampire. You see, Katherine is the Original Witch, the strongest witch ever. Witches' power is run by nature. And all nature _must_ have a balance. (I.E: Ninjago _the continent _being half good, the half the Ninja live on, and then the Dark Island, the bad side.) Without it, there would not be existence. Because Katherine created Maya as the Original Vampire and therefore Maya cannot be killed by anything except for a certain spell done by a certain witch, she had to create a version of Maya that _could _die. A balance. A "shadow self." A doppelganger. (A doppelganger is someone who looks _exactly _like another living person.) Katherine created Seiko as the doppelganger to the Original Vampire to create that balance, so that if she created something that _could not die _it also had a part of it that _could _die. **4)** Maya DOES hate Kai. She hates him for a reason you did state: He's always there for the people he loves and she never had someone there to do that for her. Don't worry, I _love _questions. Especially when my readers ask them. Those were some good questions!

**A/N:**

**I know I keep promising B or C..**.and you will get them! Promise! But the choice I decided to write is kind of hard, and it's coming, just…later. Okay? Thanks for your patience!

**Since this is really more of a Kai thought-process chapter, I didn't go into ****_great_**** detail describing things, because when you're just ****_thinking _****stuff you're not really paying attention to adjectives and word choice and sentence fragments and stuff. :3 I hope you like it! **

* * *

**CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX:  
**The Fly and the Darkness

Kai ran his hands over the steering wheel. Man, this _car_…The leather was smooth to the touch, hardly ever used by anyone before, but extremely sticky. The stereo in here was kind of nice. Not very surround-sound-y, so you had to put in your hearing aids to pick out the lyrics. Plus, the whole freakin' car smelled like Lysol and air-freshener. Lilacs were used to dampen the smell of new leather, but it wasn't working out so well. He and Lloyd were trying hopelessly not to gag and wake up the kid in the backseat, but it was hard not to. They made themselves more entertained by naming what they'd rather be smelling at the moment. Ultimately, they'd chose Cole's chili over this rank smell, and that was saying a helluva lot when it came to that chili.

Cue the shudders.

It made Kai feel great to be able to talk to Lloyd in an actual conversation. The kid was calm, low-key, meaning _the Other Guy _didn't have the potential to be unleashed. It was just two friends, discussing something completely random. Something it seemed like Lloyd needed. Something normal. A _normal _activity. No strings attached. And to be honest, Kai kind of needed it, too. This was him, and this was Lloyd, and it was just _talking. _Not discussing impending doom or evil villains or Humanity Switches or venom or any of that bullshit. Just a smelly car. And chili. And a bunch of other random topics.

Kai noticed that Seiko was being unconventionally quiet in the backseat. At first, he believed she was asleep, but then realized that Lloyd was talking to her and turning around to look at her; she just wasn't responding often. If anything, her answers were short, and soft, and unnaturally silent. Her mind seemed somewhere else. Whichever place that was, Kai didn't quite know, but it was a place where he figured Lloyd wasn't welcome. He kept glancing in the rearview mirror at her to see if she was still alive.

_And _more acceptable of Bokuyo's existence, it seemed. The little boy rested his face on her shoulder and not once did Kai see her try to push him off like she had down by the van. What had changed so quickly? Why was she suddenly so accepting of him? It just might be one of those mysteries, like how many licks it took to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. He wanted to know, but didn't think it was right to ask. She probably wouldn't like it if he did. It seemed like the only person she ever really _answered _to was Lloyd.

_The nightmare. _It reoccurred and reoccurred and reoccurred until Kai could point out every obvious detail in it, but not once had he understood why _he _was having that dream. Now, it turned out to be completely prophetic and foreshadowing of the future. But why did Kai have it? Of all people, he'd least expect himself to have it; he'd sooner have guessed it would be a "Zane" dream—and at the time, Zane was a robot, and robots don't dream—than a "Kai" dream. So far, everything had been proven to be true. Cole was a _vamp_. Jay was actually really good at kicking ass when he got mad at someone about his girlfriend. Zane had struck himself strange. Lloyd was freaking himself out because of the stress of everything. And that proverbial "Light switch" that Lloyd had shut down, that had turned off all the power inside of the building, that was actually a subconscious reference to _the Humanity Switch. _Somehow, Kai had predicted it all—but not once had he been able to tell who the hell that mysterious girl was. He could picture her now, placing her hand on Lloyd's shoulder, calming him down the second she touched him, and feel that overwhelming sense of _need _that came over Kai when he'd seen her. Wrapped in his dream, of course, he'd wanted to run to her, scoop her up, and steal her away from Lloyd—and for what reason? Why? Kai had always looked at the strong, thought-consuming emotion as wanting to be with her. He had looked at this girl from his dreams and wanted to be _with her _even when he didn't know who the hell she was. And why? Why would Kai want to? Was he really that desperate or something?

No. Not at all. Kai Smith was no sucker for love. He liked attention, especially when it came to fan girls, but he wasn't necessarily out there sniffing the ground for a single woman. He'd said it before: he wasn't looking for a relationship right now. In all honesty, having a girlfriend would just weigh him down. He couldn't imagine dividing his time up for her when he already had so many other things to clock in. He was impressed with Jay and Nya before their brains had been wiped of every memory they had and the issue of a second boyfriend came into play. They managed to divvy up their time for each other and make it work. Probably because Nya was the most organized person in the world, and Jay just went along with whatever when it came to her. That was love. Real, pure, uncharted love. Why Nya had decided that being with Jay wasn't good enough just actually made Kai really…angry. He didn't want her to ruin Jay's heart like that. He may have been quite the authority figure when it came to barring their relationship, but he actually had _loved _that Nya was dating his friend. It just _worked. They _worked. Jay and Nya had been—in his opinion—perfect together. He'd seen their breakup as a ghost, watched the two after Zane's robot form gave out and the real father of her baby was revealed. Or, well, _one _of the babies. The surviving baby. It had _blown his mind. _Cole? Really? Not that Cole was a bad guy, but he'd never imagined that Nya would go for him. The dark…the attractive…the dangerous…the leader. Of anyone, he would've sooner expected her to pair up with Zane.

Zane. God. That poor guy. Being kicked and kicked and kicked and _kicked _after he was already down…How he was still alive, Kai would never know. He was one of those people that fate decides to beat up as collateral all the time. Especially with the whole _Caroline _thing. They had trusted her, put their empathy into her, and she'd turned out to be on the other team the whole time. And Kai had seen the way Zane looked at her. It didn't matter if he was a robot. He'd _loved _Caroline. And then…she was Caroline, but Zane just couldn't seem to tell the difference between Caroline and Carolyne because Caroline stole the face of the girl he _did _love. Unrightfully, too. He had to be confused. If he looked at her heart, he would've known the separation between the two. But not their faces. Kai admired Zane for his strength. His ability to stay strong when everything around him was crumbling like croissants.

And though Cole wouldn't admit it, Kai completely knew that Cole was in love with Nya. He wouldn't ever say that out loud, though. It made Kai feel really crappy but really relieved that he wouldn't be the person who had to battle it out with another guy to get the girl he loved. He could just be able to see it on his friend's face when she walked in the room. His face would light up. His eyes would melt. He was better at keeping it concealed than Jay was, but Kai was blown away that he hadn't noticed it before that. Cole loved her. A lot.

It was that time in their lives when they were all becoming _drawn _to the female population. When everyone was finally letting themselves open up to relationships. Before, they had been full-time Ninjas and doing training constantly, whether it be on themselves or others, and no one had the time to think about love. Except Jay. But he had an excuse. When the Overlord was gone, they had nothing to do but sit around and mess around and relax. But maybe the idea of everyone getting _involved _with girls wasn't such a great idea. So far, it had screwed every one of his brothers over.

Except Lloyd.

But Lloyd probably still believed that girls had Cooties. That, or he hadn't ever thought about it. It was probably a little of both. Kai smirked into the desolate road. (The GPS with the monastery's coordinates in it led them out of town.) Picturing Lloyd with a girlfriend was basically the most _impossible _thing that Kai had ever done.

He held in a groan when the stoplight in front of him halted them. Kai hated those sons of bitches, thinking they had the right to _always _stop him but not that messed up white car in front of him. He leaned back and rested his elbow on the car door. This would take a while. It normally did.

In any situation, girls were always screwing them up. For example: Maya. Maya was screwing this whole thing up. She was here, and Kai knew that she would do _something _to Cole at some point in time. Having her around was extremely dangerous. Another example: Danielle. Not that she wasn't fun to be around, with her emotionless brains and all, but she was Lloyd's mom, and Kai knew that freaked his best friend out. Another: Caroline. There were so many ways to list that Caroline had screwed them over, it would be impossible to cover them all in one sitting. But it's obvious what Caroline's done. (_I wouldn't suspect any of you to be unaware of what she's done.)_ Kai didn't know much about Seiko yet. But with the way Lloyd was around her, he had a feeling she'd be sticking around to play for a little while longer.

Well, fuck.

Not _fuck_ that she was staying. _Fuck_, she was staying and Kai would be further exposed to looking at her and every time being reminded of that inner pull that was telling him he needed to be with her.

Which brought him back to the initial of this whole thing.

Why the hell did he want to?

He just knew he wanted to. Badly.

Why? WHY THOUGH?

That question was being asked so many times in any situation that Kai was just starting to believe it had no more meaning in the world. Like he said before, Kai wasn't in the mood to make the commitment of being a boyfriend. To of all people _Seiko_, who was Cole's younger sister, for absolutely no reason. What was the point of desiring to be with her if he couldn't even handle watching all of his friends and making sure they were safe? Where would time come in to find time to watch _her, _and make sure _she _was safe? It would be worthless, yet there were so many things drawing him to her. What drew him to her? Kai was pretty sure it had something to do with her aura. What would he get out of being with her? Probably nothing. Would he for some reason take sacrifices for her anyway? Hell..._yeah, _he would. Did he want to be the one to comfort her when she cried? Kind of, yeah. Did he want to be the one who stepped into a fight and caught the bullet for her? Strangely so. Did he want to be the one to show her what the meaning of living was all about? Pretty much. Did he want to smile with her, share special moments with her? Unfortunately, against his will, he did. Did he want to be the one who held out her umbrella when the sky poured rain? Did he want to be the one to, after a long day, walk up to her and just let go of everything and focus on _being_ with her? Did he want to kiss her goodnight? Did he want to wake up every morning and know he'd get to see her and take that as the only reason he had to wake?

Fuck, yes, he did.

Did he hate that he'd do all those things for a girl he didn't know?

Fuck. Freaking. Yes.

There just wasn't a point.

The stoplight was still being stupid. Kai drummed his fingers on the wheel. He really, really hated stoplights. They were helpful, but they irritated the hell out of him. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Lloyd turn in his seat to look back at her, the girl Kai had been furiously thinking about for the past two minutes. (For no reason, mind you.) They probably should've been including her in their conversations, but Kai felt uncomfortable at the thought. She was still the girl he… "wanted aimlessly." Since he had nothing better to do, he turned his head to watch. Stoplights were stupid. And he kind of observed something he wasn't expecting to see.

In what seemed like a normal action that would mean nothing, Lloyd's face and body underwent a small transformation. Kai witnessed the sudden relaxation of the kid's shoulder line. Lloyd's eyes gelled over a little, and his lips parted slightly when his eyes rested upon her face, softly beaming at her sights. Kai reeled. _Wait, what, _he redid the motions in his head, but it was still incomprehendable the second time around. It was that _look. _The look he saw on Cole's and Jay's faces when they looked at Nya. That slight _conversion. _

"Hey, Seiko," Lloyd said quietly. She went from peering tiredly out the window to staring into his eyes, and Kai looked back just in time to see Lloyd's body melt again. "I have a question. Do you think a fly without wings would be called a 'walk?'"

She thought about it for a moment. Her head tilted to the side and her visible eye narrowed. The other was hidden underneath her bangs. There it was, the classic expression of ultimate pondering. Kai found himself riveted to the bird-like way she tilted her head. Listening. Thinking. Softly living. After a moment, Seiko retrieved her answer, and rubbed the bare skin on her leg. "No," she decided finally. "Mean flies would just call it a 'cripple.'"

Lloyd laughed. Kai found himself chuckling, too, at the innocence of it. But he looked at his best friend and saw something underneath his skin, underneath his laughter, that you had to be _the best friend _to see. And it flipping _blew Kai away. _

Lloyd was _happy. _

Maybe just for a brief, fleeting, _ephemeral_ moment, but he saw it. A glimmer of hope shined through the darkness that once eclipsed the choices of Lloyd's bitter reality. There was potential, even inside of real darkness, to be happy. A shine, a small twinkle, a _something. _Small, almost nonexistent particles of joy that brought actuality to a halt, that made Kai grin like the idiot he was, that made him watch Seiko and Lloyd just _look_ at each other, that smacked him in the gut, that made him _know _that the Lloyd he loved was _still in there somewhere. _Not all hope was lost. There was still the potential to keep Lloyd grounded among that venom. Kai's fists clenched around the steering wheel as the light turned green. He'd cling to that hope for the life of him.

Always.

* * *

**So expect B/C soon? :) **Thanks guys for reading and being patient. Life is tough. It's beating the crap out of me.

**I want you to go have the BEST day/night ever and dream the most BEAUTIFUL dream you have ever dreamed tonight. **

**(P-S: **The last of the snow in town just melted! YAAAYYYY!)

**Burning Fan Question: **What is the COOLEST thing you've ever done? (So far in life!)

~Kairi


	37. Chapter 37

**Hi, everyone. I'm Emiko, Kairi's sister...While she's taking her 'sabbatical' i'm supposed to write for her. Just for the record she helped me write part of this chapter! yay! on the road to recovery! anyway, it was more a mutual decision really- we decided to give you 16 pages for this chapter because there was such a big gap between updates. Also, I wanted to thank you ALL on Kairi's behalf for all your beautiful and inspiring responses to her journel. :-) That was so kind of all of you to be so nice and uplifting. I know that reading them made her feel better- she was a little better today, and you'd be happy to know that I crammed a whole bunch of comfort-ice cream down her throat while she was watching Ninjago today. :-) Watching that always makes Kairi cheer up, so I have my fingers crossed that our ninja saved her today as well as the good people of Ninjago city. :-) I know this is not even half as good as Kairi's chapters, but I really tried to make it my best. I'm a little rusty. I haven't written for a while ! ! She did have a huge input to what I wrote, though so at least she's motivated. ;-D**

* * *

**Chapter 37:  
**Pretty Boys

Nya thought Cole was _really, really, really _pretty.

Not the kind of pretty like the flowers Misako gave her, or the kind of pretty when she watched the sunset every afternoon with Zane. He was the kind of pretty like _Lloyd_ pretty. The pretty that made Nya's little heart run faster and her cheeks warm up and her insides feel all fuzzy. She felt bad for thinking that Cole was pretty when the only pretty boy she should've been thinking about was Lloyd—her baby daddy—but at the same time, she didn't think Lloyd would mind, would he? She was only commenting on Cole's utter prettiness, and the fact that Nya couldn't stop herself from relentlessly staring into his face, hoping to see something there. She loved the way his eyebrows moved when he talked, and the way he tilted his head before flipping his black hair out of his face. She really liked how he pursed his lips when he was thinking hard. They looked, in her girlish perspective, plush and feather-light to the touch. She wanted to draw her fingers across his cupid's bow, trace the outline of his cheekbones across his fine face, the visual stimulant of his perfect nose. There seemed to be a deep, _deep _story in Cole's eyes, and Nya was determined to figure it out. She _wanted _to, even though she couldn't say the words her lips wanted to form. Her voice box did not work in tune with her brain, a scenario that made her extremely irritated. Nya tucked in her legs underneath the seat she sat in, neatly in the middle seat of the car, beside the redheaded boy named Jay. With Cole turned around in the front passenger seat so he could talk to Jay and Zane about motivational billboards, she was able to look at him all she wanted without making it seem weird.

Nya watched Cole's eyebrows move when he spoke, twirling between his fingers a slip of empty post-it paper. "Motivational billboards can be interesting. I like the ones that advertise irony water. You know, the ones with the chicks with orange hair because of the iron-water coming out of showers?

"Yeah, but, you never see any other good ones," Jay said, rubbing his hand over his wrist. Nya broke her stare off Cole's face to glance over at Jay's, catching a glimpse of the sunlight pouring through the window and starring across the bridge of his nose. The sun shone over his brown eyelashes, sparkled in his green irises, and illuminated his skin into a decadent creamy shade. With a tiny gasp, Nya realized that Jay was pretty, too. Maybe not Cole-pretty or Lloyd-pretty, but pretty. She found herself staring at him instead. "They overdo the car company ones. I think they should add more _humor _into it, you know what I mean? So people actually _want _to get into whatever's being advertised."

Nya looked down at Jay's hands. They were calloused, rough-skinned as though he spent his time doing things that didn't involve total delicacy. His fingernails were chipped. Bitten away by his row of white teeth. Jay's red hair hung in his eyes, high enough to reveal the mysterious slit in his right eyebrow. Nya wanted to reach up and feel the sliver of empty skin, but didn't. Instead, looking back at his hands, Nya was fascinated by the thought of how they would feel, and tentatively reached forward to grab one out of his lap.

Jay jerked his hand out of hers the second he felt her fingertips moving over his skin. His whole body flinching, Jay leaned away and looked towards her, his eyes wide in startled Bambi-impersonations. Nya withdrew her hand. "Ha-and-z." She pointed. Jay looked down at his.

"What's wrong with them?" He asked, looking back up at her.

_Pretty, _Nya wanted to say, but instead, reached open her palm and made a _claw _motion across it, trying to portray their roughness. Jay's eyebrows furrowed. "I scratched them?" He asked. He glanced into the face of his palm.

"No." Nya rapidly scrubbed her hands together. How could she say they were rough? It was hard for her to voice that word, because it was difficult for Nya to do her _f'_s. She didn't know how to make the sound; it was as difficult as whistling. Zane had tried to teach her, once, how to whistle, but sorely she'd failed, accidentally spitting on him instead of making the chiming-noise he could from between his puckered lips.

"They're warm?" Jay asked. He looked doubly confused. Nya giggled, tentatively stretching forward her hands to open them, allowing Jay a moment to consider "_handing" _them over. After a second, he placed his own into hers. She rubbed her hands across the calloused heels of his palms, towards the hard skin over his fingertips. They were hard measures of his hands, rocky, sandpaper-y. Everything that Nya had suspected them to be, even perhaps better than what she had hoped. Her own skin moving across Jay's made little flutters of electricity jolt through her body and into her heart, making the hair of her arms stand up, her eyes widen rations more than before. Jay watched her small, white fingertips move elegantly over his flesh.

"Har-_dd." _Nya poked the calloused portions.

"OH! Okay." Jay nodded once. His view was obstructed by holding his hands in front of his face. "I see. Yeah. They started doing that more after Dad started teaching me how to tinker with stuff."

"WAIT," Cole interrupted, making Nya raise her face to his, blown away by a blast of his beauty once more. "Did you say _'Dad'?" _

"No," Jay said sweetly, "I said _Donkey Kong." _

Cole gave him a look, but Nya sufficed giggles, holding her hands over her mouth as not to seem rude to Cole. However, it appeared he wasn't fazed, and kept his shocked expression pointed towards Jay. The redhead's eyes narrowed. "WHY? What's wrong with calling him 'Dad'?"

Cole, blown away by whatever made him stare in shock, "You know who your _dad _is?!"

"Do you know who _your _dad is?" countered Jay.

Cole gave him that extra special _you-dork _look, but Nya saw there was a sparkle in his eyes, lighting up his face completely. It made him look even _prettier! _Nya smiled to herself when Cole reached through the space between the front seats to poke Jay's knee. The action made Jay flinch back. "Well, I'll be damned," he grinned, returning to facing forward. It broke the beauty of light that kept coming into Nya's view. She pouted over the supple loss. "You know something."

"AHEM! I happen to know plenty of—"

"I _meant, _from your _past," _Cole intercepted. Nya giggled again, and this time, it was Jay who glanced down at her, trying to envision what was so amusing but missing the punchline completely. Nya was not giggling because they were being funny. She was giggling because they were so _pretty. _

**…  
****_Rikku_**

The long, empty road stretched before Rikku's silly white van. The old model chugged along across the thousands of miniature cracks and lacerations to the pavement without feeling a single one. Though no one was present on the road but him, he obeyed the speed limit, naturally tuning out the chit-chat of his passengers. It wasn't like they were speaking to him, anyway; Rikku was the chauffeur, and the four of them were friends, excluding himself. He was nothing to them. The privilege of joining their conversation was righted only to those who were not _messengers, _but heroes, all of which Rikku was not.

Rikku made the left turn deeper across the desert. Of course he would not be included. His brother couldn't remember his own name half the time, a bad sign already, but to be expecting of his brother's _friends _to remember Rikku was a bit of a stretch. If his friends couldn't remember each _other_, Rikku would not even be the minor of all blips on their memory radar.

Zane's friends didn't pay attention to him. _Zane's friends. _Not Rikku's. Zane was able to bring people swarming him by the dozens that may happen to float by, whether it be birthed by his charming innocence or guiltless kindness. People just liked Zane. He did not repel them, even as a humanoid mechanism, but rather kept them all within arm's reach. You would think that Zane's arms would one day be full of people he needed to keep track of, deeming him unorganized and useless, but he did a marvelous job at keeping that a controlled environment. He did what _he _wanted to do, was brave enough to sacrifice himself in a battle for the people he loved. It didn't matter if he was a robot or a human…Zane would've done it either way. To make sure all was safe for those he cared most about, he would've bent over backwards and taken the slit throat to protect him. He was a noble, honorable young warrior that had been beat quite a few times since his fall. Rikku flexed his fingers while wandering deep into the forest of his mind, chopping down trees as he went without bothering to see how beautiful the leaves were. The steering wheel was the handle, and this car was his axe.

_Energy level: 18%. _

The red light blinking in the corner of his vision was quickly dismissed. Rikku's equipment was considered the lesser of the built brothers. To provide himself with energy, Rikku had to physically plug himself into a generator that Danielle wheeled around for him to the courtesy of her own liking. Last night, he'd been hooked up for a very long time, but hadn't gotten many bars of vitality out of it. Julien had created Zane to take human food and break down the contents into energy, a user-friendly option to keeping him from dying in the middle of the fight. Sleep also stored Zane some backup bars if he ever had to use the extra batteries. Julien had known that Zane would be one to move around for the comfort of moving rather than as a necessity, an activity burning up of energy, which was a further gap between the two dissimilar brothers. Rikku would _never _move around just to move. He'd much rather stand still and observe grass growing.

Yet another person who liked Zane more than Rikku.

Rikku didn't understand. He did everything in his power and ability to be liked, performing everything that everyone asked correctly, offering himself in ways that he figured suitable to the dynamic of the situation, but he was never comparable to Zane in the end. It was _always _Zane. After all, Zane was the robot created with _free will; _when Rikku was built, it was significantly written into his database that he had to obey _any _order given. He was a soldier they could not afford to lose, and out of fear of misplacing him, Julien created him to obey as told—no matter _what _told. It was miserable.

_Energy level: 13%._

His means of existing were depreciating, and fast; Rikku's hands tightened reflexively along the fine leather of the van's cool steering wheel, a feat that was enabled in plenty other locations within the vehicle. _Zane. It's always him._ There was no lie beneath the harsh truth he breathed from the adequate space of his lips. Even though Rikku was automated as a mechanical semi-genuine humanoid, he was not equipped with the blessing of human emotions, yet somehow he found himself slithering to which humans only ever could fall into: a pool of one central emotion, a bitter socket he dove face-first towards. In the end, when every crusade that would soon come to the future was over, Rikku could never be to blame. Some pointed the finger at his machinery, his blueprint chip resting in the nest of his fashioned body, a generator with legs. Others figured it was Rikku himself that was so decreed a villain after everything. But it was always a faulty wire they said followed actions of its own.

Rikku never really knew himself what became of him. The central emotion that his body honed in on was not anything of a positivity. If anything, it was destructive. Rikku's prone jealousy burned brighter than anything he had ever experienced likewise before. Never was he enabled with emotion, just the figurative _memory _of having them and perhaps what if felt like to wield love or passion or happiness or joy. Somehow, though, he knew it was within his oil arteries and the gear tracts that defined his true form underneath the placard of human-ness that onlookers saw. The jealousy was there. The anger. The thought of betrayal. The cold, sick determination. Yes, he had these emotions now. For what, he was ashamed for.

He was such an inhumane bastard. He really was.

Instinctively, his ears tuned into audio perception when the utter of his brother's wretched name was soothed from someone's lips. The speaker was, from the harbor of the passenger seat beside him, Cole, who innocently turned in his seat to look at Zane. The discussion Rikku joined through audibility was only half-understood. He'd missed the first of it. "Zane," Cole said, rubbing his brow, "what are you _talking _about?"

"I sensed something, in the bathroom," Zane said innocently. From reaching the rearview mirror with his eyes, Rikku perceived he was sitting ramrod straight, legs pressed together, and hands innocently tucked onto his knees as he listened to the sounds of the sterile car around him. At his side, Jay turned his head to give him a queer look, but surprisingly offered no interruption. "I sensed a deep, deep sorrow."

Ah. The girl, then. Seiko. The one that _They _wanted.

"I found a couple of things wrong with that statement. A: How did you 'sense' anything?" Jay made air quotations, looking dubiously irritated. "And _B: _What do you mean, a 'sorrow'?" He asked, bending forward to pluck at the various laces of his shoes.

Rikku moved his eyes back to the road of No Man's Land, listening once more without the assistance of imagery. "I don't know," Zane said after a moment. "I just sensed it. I have been experiencing this a lot lately, where I can _feel _other people's emotions, and I—If they are in pain, I am able to…remove…some of it, and absorb it into myself. I know," he added when Jay was about to protest, "it sounds rather strange, but it has worked multiple times. I know what you are feeling. I can _sense _it. Right now, I can feel you are all staring at me, and you are all startled. Jay is quite disbelieving. Cole, you are awestruck. Nya, you are…fuzzy." At this, from the mirror, Rikku watched Jay's nose pinch. Zane caught the expression. "She is not understanding anything I am saying. To her it is a foreign language. It is—I can feel very deep emotion within each of you. But, when I was up in the bathroom with Miss Seiko…it was different. Darker. Like I was swallowed in darkness. I somehow knew that it was what she was feeling, because—well, because I could feel it myself. It was rather strange, but I…" He cleared his throat. "I could feel as though I was just in great, great sorrow. As though I could not be pulled from the darkness I was swimming in. My chest"—Rikku glanced up to the mirror, finding Zane laying a wide hand across his chest, looking at his lap—"felt rather empty. Burning, almost, and my stomach twisted. My lungs felt heavy. It was hard to breathe." The road stretched, ever-unending, before Rikku. "I could not escape the feeling. It was awful."

"Uh," Jay rubbed the back of his neck nervously. At his side, Nya leaned forward, silently peering around the man beside her to look at the prophetic dreamer. "Are you sure that wasn't heartburn or something?"

Rikku glanced at Cole. The older brother to the girl of topic was staring in consternation towards Zane as though there was a hidden crypt behind his eyes. The ice-eyed boy stared back, lacking distress of a natural human being. Rikku would have frowned if the coordinates for the motion were included somewhere in his database. Zane was being ridiculously unnatural. The 'sensing' clairvoyance of his experience left his older brother to wonder what exactly had been gifted to him when he returned from the ungrateful dead.

Cole blinked slowly. "Why would she be sad?" he asked quietly. It seemed like a question aimed more towards himself, but eavesdroppers sucked onto the comment and answered their own ways.

"You're her husband," Jay responded, crossing his arms over his chest. Rikku looked back at the road to change onto another. "You tell us."

Cole's face deepened in color. "I'm not her husband," he grumbled. "I'm her brother."

"Since when?" Snidely, Jay leaned forward. Rikku shuffled with a few dials on the back of the steering wheel, hidden to everyone but him. The sound of Cole's voice was drowned out when Zane responded instead.

"He has remembered," he said softly. Silence pulled into the car. Rikku pulled down his visor to deflect the awesome burn of the sun's excruciating rays, digging into his body like the shovel of an undertaker. He had already been aware that the vampire regained previously missing memories, much to his interest overcoming the bullet Caroline—or Kaos—injected within his head. His supernatural healing must work differently than others expected it to.

Jay's eyes slowly widened in the dim reflection of Rikku's rearview mirror. He watched the abashed expression slowly torment the young boy's face before the outburst of disbelief escaped the jail of his throat. "WHAT?!" Jay squealed, leaning forward, closer to Cole than was comfortable. The vampire leaned back in bewilderment. "HOW?!"

Cole rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully. Rikku looked at the sun, dangling far into the distance, and wondered if it were possible that it could beam towards him and suck him completely away, like an alien spacecraft. If he were human, nerves of the future would eventually wrack his fingers into shaking uncontrollably. He'd be, in his anxious state, fidgeting constantly. He would be drumming his fingers, bouncing his leg, hoping the others didn't notice his shifty eyes. But Rikku was blessed—and cursed—with the inability to do such human things. No one knew anything was out of the ordinary. A fatal mistake.

They were pulling onto a long stretch of road that was disappearing from sand and into grassland. Rikku admired the formidable change in scenery; far beyond where his car was now, on the opposite end of the road, was Kuna Bridge. It extended over Samurai River, which barreled through the middle of the land. Kuna Bridge had been there _forever. _Since before Rikku was a baby. He remembered fishing off that bridge before it became a highway transportation device.

"I guess…" Cole pondered aloud, tapping his finger on his lips, "that I was…_reliving _something I'd already done. When I was doing it, I felt really weird. Like déjà vu was completely overtaking me. And it was. And I must've thought a trigger word or something, because then it all came back to me at once." He sighed and dragged his hand over his nose.

Jay listened like he was being told a bedtime story. "That's _IT? _We just…_REDO _it? Are you KIDDING ME? That's so _easy!"_ He leaned back and huffed, crossing his arms over his jacket-clad chest, and made a face. "_I _could get back _my_ memories, and finally everyone could stop treading eggshells. What were you even _doing?" _

"Lifting weights," Cole provided. "But, Jay—"

"Typical. But why that? It's not very, um, _significant…_you know, like, you've done it a million times. It's not that unique. Why would _that, _a common action, be your trigger?"

Cole sighed. "I was repeating the same actions that I did the day that this all started. Er, by 'this,' I mean all of this weird supernatural, end-of-the-world stuff that's been going on. With the demons and the evil and whatnot—"

"Perhaps," interjected Zane, "that is what our trigger is. The day that everything changed is as far as our memories were erased, correct?"

"No," Cole answered. "Our memories were erased back to when we were _babies, _and replaced with _fake _memories_." _

"Alright." Zane thought about it a moment. "Do you think that if we recreated something that initially was a trigger to something else in our past—like maybe the spark to something really big that happened—that would help jog our memories?"

Rikku was surprised at how quickly Zane caught on, but not at all flattered. He flexed his fingers irritably. Cole opened his mouth, but Rikku couldn't refrain from responding. "To erase a memory—well, for starters, you are not erasing it. That's impossible, no matter what Danielle or Kaos may say." He drove at a slow, steady pace. He memory-dreaded coming to the next bend, far in the road ahead of them. To distract himself, Rikku busied himself informing his brother, who seemed to be a quick learner. "To erase a memory, you are dividing up the 'triggers' that make you remember of another memory so they are no longer connected, per se, and therefore it is 'lost.' You must think about _chain reactions. _For example, when you are merely sitting and thinking: One thought leads you to another thought and to another, correct? It becomes a spiraling sequence of thoughts, always triggering each other. It is the same concept with memories. If you remember one thing—something rather large that impacted your memories previously—it will jog another, and another, and another, until you are lighting up the whole city of your memories. Right now, you are sunk deep into the dark. Your city has no light. But if you remember one thing, it _will _become a chain of memories that will continue to multiply. The lights will come on. You will remember."

**_WARNING_**_: Energy Level: 7%. _

Rikku sighed. Why couldn't life be easy? He switched a button on the dashboard and sighed heavily again. If they were going to make it to their destination in proper time, he would have to disobey a few traffic laws—although they were the only residents using this road—to reach it. He pressed a little harder on the gas pedal, using the expellant to propel them forwards towards rickety Kuna Bridge.

…

Zane found himself sinking into the inevitable. He enjoyed talking to Jay and Cole, accompanied by the helpful cooing of Nya, but eventually the conversation about memory-regaining dashed away. It transformed into a miniature discussion between Jay and Cole exclusively. It wasn't that Zane was being excluded; he did not find this particular topic interesting anymore. He peered out the window at the sandy earth beneath Rikku's van. He watched the land roll by, the same land he had seen for a while now, and thought about Rikku. He was a peculiar man. Come to think of it, Zane still did not understand the extent of how – and why – Rikku was his brother. Everyone told him so. But from the little picture books that Misako and Edna had given to him to read, siblings were supposed to look familiar. Quite alike. At least, the drawings in the books did, and that was where the majority of Zane's perspective came from. Yet there was nothing he found particularly akin about Rikku that reminded him of himself. The older boy was dark, tanned, and seemingly lethal, but Zane was none of those things. After all, he'd found, after Misako had shown him how to paint with watercolors, that his favorite color was not what he was able to transfer onto the blank paper, but the paper _itself. _He liked white more than any color he could think of. Why? Because it was a _clean _color. A charmingly, splendidly, pure color. It wasn't rotted, or ruined, or destroyed by all these other explosive and attention-grabbing hues. Then, in complete distinction, Rikku was not. No pale skin, no light hair, no fluid movements. He made jerky motions, including abrupt stops and sharply unannounced turns. Luckily, his hazardous personality outside of the vehicle wasn't carried into his driving. Zane may have had a traumatizing issue with cars after that.

His personality was different, too. Rikku seemed to lack just that. He seemed like an empty person, someone who was deprived on true living. Zane couldn't find himself able to _'probe' _Rikku with his strange, sixth-sense ability to understand the emotions and correct them of those around him. When he tried to reach out to Rikku, all he hit was a road block. What was wrong? Did Rikku not have any emotion? But that was impossible. Every creature on earth had to have _emotion. _Nothing provoked it out of him. Specifically, the factor of _parents. _Everyone else had them, but Zane did not. Rikku seemed to have no problems with being an orphaned child. If Rikku really _was _Zane's brother, that meant he had no parents, either, for the fact that Zane had none. Did Rikku like being orphaned? Did it make him sad? Did he like Zane? They had not spent quality time together, getting to know each other. Rikku was more focused on transporting Nya back and forth between the prison and Misako's house, then whispering with the adults as though Zane, Cole, Jay, and Nya couldn't hear them.

He sighed. Zane didn't understand a lot of things when it came to who he was, let alone the _brother _issues. The injustice of being told every day about something you _had _done, yet held no memory to doing, grew deeper and deeper. He did not understand why he suffered such eloquent memory loss. He did not understand why his friends did, either, or why he acquired the ability to understand the emotions and thoughts of those around him. This was not to mention the capacity to remove pain from others. It was strange, but Zane soaked it in like Misako's yellow sponge. (Not the kind that talked.) Every ounce he saturated did not seem to alter his naturally cheerful attitude. Was it a gift? Or was it a curse?

He thought about the girl he'd last taken pain from. Miss Seiko seemed to be someone who reveled in darkness, an act he did not encourage. Dancing in darkness was as negative as self-destructive thoughts, something Zane did not approve well of. He figured that somehow, using his _ability, _whether it be good or bad, he could manipulate Miss Seiko's emotions out of the darkness. After all, it would be dire if she found herself exploding inside of the black helplessness.

Zane yawned. He was quite worn out. Perhaps if he rested his head on his hand, he could enjoy this ride more…

…  
**_Bokuyo POV_**

"_GAH_! Whazzat?!" The little boy raised his hand and pointed towards a spec on the long road Mr. Kai had pulled onto. It was a nice spot to move into, Bokuyo thought; he was getting _reaaaalllyyy _tired of looking at all that SAND and stuff. It wasn't pretty. Not pretty like Mommy. The blob dancing slowly not that far ahead of them was moving slowly. Mister Kai squinted into the distance.

"Looks like a car," he said. "Weird, 'cause this freeway has been deserted for a while."

"Almost kind of like Rikku's car," Mister Lloyd said. He picked at one a 'dem loose stringy-thingys on his pants. Bokuyo had watched him do it for a while. He'd pull off the string and then wrap it around his finger, then pull off 'nother one and tie 'dem together. It seemed kinda like a nerbus hobbit or whatever Mommy used to call 'dem back home. Bokuyo kicked his little feet from his seat.

"What'f it _IZZZZZ _Mister Rikku?" asked Bokuyo.

Mister Kai chuckled at him. Bokuyo didn't know why he was laughin'. He didn't say nothin' funny. Just askin' a question. "Maybe it is. He's driving pretty slow, though, so I don't know. It doesn't seem like Rikku would be inconsistent with the speed limit."

"But what'f he had ta tie his SHOES?" Bokuyo asked. He swung his feet again. "'DEN WHAT!"

"He'd pull over," Mister Lloyd answered. He turned in his seat to flash his blue eyes at Bokuyo, and the little boy froze. The look was friendly, but every time Mister Lloyd looked at him, Bokuyo felt funny inside. Like he was bein' tickled-ed by Shaun Ling back at home, who used to pick on him when he was at the playground with Grampa. (which hurt!) Grampa never did nothin', and neither did Gramma, but Bokuyo kicked Shaun in the shin once and Shaun went home cryin'. Bokuyo felt really good 'cause he'd beated (beated-ed?) a bully but 'den Mommy got mad when Shaun's mom called Mommy on the thingamajig. He swung his feet again and looked at Mister Kai, breaking contact with Mister Lloyd. He didn't like feelin' like he was bein' tickled-ed by Shaun Ling.

"But what'f he's runnin' outta GAS?"

"Then…he's slowing down," answered Mister Lloyd. Mister Kai chuckled from the front seat. This time, Mister Lloyd didn't turn around. Bokuyo felt better when he didn't.

"Maybe he's runnin' outta gas."

"We'll find out eventually."

Mister Kai pulled closer to the ever-slowing vehicle; not close enough to fit a car between them, but a good thirty feet away. Mister Lloyd squinted at the plate with numbers and letters on the back of the car. "Hey! It _is _Rikku!" He exclaimed.

"I guess Danielle thought we should take the same way, just in case one of us gets in danger or something," Mister Kai said.

Bokuyo turned and poked Mommy. "Mommy! Look! Issss Mister Rikku! An' Mister Jay and Mister Zane an' Uncle Cole and Miss Nya!" he pointed. Mommy leaned her head off the window and looked at the silver car in front of them, nodded, and put her head back. Bokuyo felt really ugly after that. Somethin' was wrong with Mommy. He tugged on her sleeve. "Momma! Whazzamatter?"

"Nothing," responded Mommy. Bokuyo didn't like the sound of her voice. It sounded weak. Almost like she was gonna cry, but he'd heard-ed Mommy talk before she cry an' it _didn't _sound like that, but more like she had somethin' stuck in her neck. The end of the word was high-pitcheded and sounded like a lie. Like it almost gotted cut off. 'Clipped.'

It was kinda funny 'cause Mister Lloyd turned around to look at her. He had this look on his face that Grampa always gave to Mommy when she started crying 'cause of Daddy. It looks concerned and stuffs, but it doesn't look like he's gonna cry. He looks like he cares about Mommy a lot. Gramma one time took Bokuyo out of the room when Mommy started to tear up on Daddy's birthday, and Grampa was givin' Mommy that look, and when he asked Gramma what was wrong with Grampa's face, she said that Grampa had compassion under his hard skin. He didn't get it then an' he _still _didn't get it, but Gramma knows what she's talkin' about an' he guessed that's all that matters.

Mommy doesn't talk about Daddy a lot.

So Mister Lloyd gave Mommy that look, an' it made Bokuyo watch 'cause it was interesting to see the looks on their faces. Mister Lloyd looked really concerned and compassion-ed, and Bokuyo looked at Mommy. Her face seemed to change when Bokuyo sawed her. She looked a little less shaky an' a little more not shaky. Mister Lloyd's face softened a little. Bokuyo had heard that phrase a bajillion-trillion-zajillion times before but never understood-ed what it meant 'till now. It didn't look like somebody had hit him in the face with a pillow, 'cause that's what Bokuyo thought a 'softened face' looked like. He couldn't explain it. It just softened an' he knew it. He watched idly.

"Everything okay?" Mister Lloyd asked.

"Pitch perfect, Snickerdoodles," Mommy said like a joke. But Mister Lloyd didn't smile. He made his face all pinchy and frowned.

"Seiko, _please_ don't push me awa—"

"I'm sorry. It's what I do." Mommy huffed. Bokuyo looked at her. She was rubbing her wrists. He stared hard enough and he could see faint, puckering pink scars on her pale white wrists. They were really hard to see, but he had seen 'dem hundredses of times at home. She normally tried to cover them up. "But I'm fine, Snickers. I'm just feeling ill. No issues. You can put away that whole Rottweiler thing you got going on." She waved her hand in Mister Lloyd's direction. He looked protective.

"Do you get car sick?" asked Mister Lloyd.

Mommy rolled her eyes. She thought he was being funny. "HA! The whole time I've known you, I've endured some pretty _crazy _shit, like hurling shadows at my will and riding freaking _dragons, _not to mention jumping _off _those dragons. But c'mon, Snickers, gimme credit! If I got _carsick, _do you know how STUPID that would be? How IRONIC? I would be _the _**BIGGEST** FAIL EVER. And I'm a Mitsuhide. Ain't nobody got time for that."

Mister Lloyd looked relieved. He smiled and relaxed a little. Bokuyo saw his shoulders lower. "At least you're still Seiko. As long as you're you, I'm happy," he murmured. It sounded almost like she wasn't supposed to hear it, but Bokuyo saw his mother's face fall a little. Not in a sad way, but like one of those shocked ways. Mommy couldn't believe he had said it. She looked 'dazzled-ed.'

Bokuyo didn't like how dazzled-ed she looked, because she was looking at him the way Mommy had looked at Daddy in a picture Bokuyo saw one time, and that look was just for Daddy. Not Mister Lloyd. It made him sad. It was s'posed to be DADDY's special look! So he opened his mouth and didn't think, which Mommy gets really mad at him when he does that, and he said because he was upset, "I see some crazy shit going on here."

Mommy's hand clapped over his mouth immediately. Bokuyo was stunned that she did that—had he said something bad? "NO!" She said. "DON'T SAY THAT!"

Mister Lloyd looked back at him with wide eyes, but he was laughing. Mister Kai looked in the mirror at Bokuyo and was also laughing. Their laughter FILLED the car, and Bokuyo didn't know what he'd said so bad, but he felt bad 'cause he got in trouble. Mommy kept her hand over his mouth, but when he looked at her, she was laughing, too. She bent down her head and put it on his tiny shoulder. Her shoulders shook 'cause she was laughing so hard. Bokuyo didn't understand. It wasn't MEANT to be bad. Mommy let go of his mouth but 'cause she was laughing so hard she collapsed in his lap. "Don't—" she cried, trying not to laugh, but not very good. "Don't—copy me when I say those words. Those are bad, and—oh, glob." She giggled. Bokuyo twisted his ankles around each other and looked down at Mommy. She still giggled like Suzie Warren did when she looked at Yoyo Tailor, the singer guy. "Oh, glob. I'm such a bad parent."

"No, Mommy," Bokuyo protested, and put his tiny hands on her cheeks. She looked stunned out of laughter. "Mommy's not a bad parent."

"No?"

"No. Mommy didn't get mad at me one time when I said her favorite word and Mommy didn't punish me, not like Shaun Ling got punished by his mommy when he said it. So you can't be a bad parent or nothin' 'cause you're good and didn't get mad at me when I said it."

"Oh?" Mommy looked at him out the corner of her eye after she sat up. "What did you say?"

"I said _fuck_ and you laughed at me."

Mister Lloyd and Mister Kai started laughing again. Mister Lloyd looked back at me, his eyeballs smiley, and said, "Oh, man. You are officially my _favorite _little kid."

Bokuyo stared at him. What was he supposed to say to the guy who stole Daddy's special look? He looked at Mommy, and then she was looking at Mister Lloyd like that again, and Bokuyo was getting sad again. Then Mommy pulled him closer, and she tucked Bokuyo's head under her chin. He was upset. When mister Lloyd turned back around, he looked up at Mommy and asked, "Why do you look at him like that?" real quiet so Mister Lloyd wouldn't hear.

"Like what?" she asked.

"You gave him _Daddy's _look. That's not fair."

"Daddy's look?"

"Yeah. Where your eyes are all sparkly and your face is all happy."

"I…" Mommy's voice stopped, and she blinked. She stared at Bokuyo for a long second, but he insisted.

"Mommy always told me you're s'posed to love _one _person. Jus' one, an' give 'dem that look. So it's not fair if you give somebody else 'dat look. I love Daddy. I love you too."

She looked away. She never answered him.

…

**_Yin_**

'Daddy's look.' What the hell.

I was _not _giving Lloyd a fricking 'Daddy's look.' Ha! 'Daddy' gets his own look my _ass. _Whatever. Whoever this 'Daddy' guy is, I'm certainly not giving him his own _look. _My eyeballs belong to _me, _dude, _not _a random father I don't know the name to. And _my_ eyes, being all sparkly and happy-fied? Really? Bitch, please. I am _not _Barbie. My eyes do _NOT _get all fluffy and sparkly and bedazzled. No way. That's a load of bull crap.

I stared out the window for a minute. I don't give people Barbie looks. Especially not Snickerdoodles, who, of all people, didn't _need _a Barbie look with the fandom trailing behind him worse than the train of his pretty little wedding gown. I do _not _indulge in such pointless engagements. That's not the kind of girl I am. Jeez. What, did this little kid know his 'Mommy' at all?

I snorted. Wow. What a whacko.

…  
**_Yang_**

Huh. A 'Daddy's Look'? Actually, I wasn't aware that dads got their own looks, but…wow. Listening with my hyperactive hearing, I'd heard Bokuyo's little whispers, and now pondered about it using my own surprise as my judgment. I didn't even know Seiko was _giving _me a look unless it was involving shooting invisible daggers at my face, but even then I hardly noticed them. I thought back, mentally, to how she'd looked at me, but saw nothing. Did Bokuyo's dad get a blank stare or… what?

I leaned back. If anything, why would _I _be getting a stare? I thought back to the way her eyes looked. Had I seen anything there? Nothing but her usual Seiko-look, lacking the 'daddy' portion that apparently Bokuyo recognized. I scratched my chin. That's definitely…weird.

I stretched out my arms and felt my face warm unintentionally when I thought of her again. But it was hard not to. She was kind of toxic to me. Tainting my thoughts…enthralling me…and definitely surprising me, that was for sure. I thought about the way her hand felt in mine, and my heart thrummed a little faster. The way it felt to hold her close. I closed my eyes to picture her face better.

* * *

**Yeah that is a bad ending, but it'll make sense in the next chapter, which I am also posting right now. So thank you for reading, thank you for being so supportive and loving and beautifully wonderful to Kairi- she appreciates everything you guys say. Leave her a hello in the reviews. thanks for reading, and on Kairi's behalf, go have an awesome day or night!**

**Emi**


	38. Chapter 38

**I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. It was all Kairi's idea, I just put it into words as best i could. :-3 NfaN is really hard to write, though, when trying to match Kairi's perfect writing. (Face, meet palm.) I hope she recovers soon, my sister. :-D so I don't burden you guys any more with my awful writing, right? ;-P **

* * *

**_CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT:  
_**Daddy Issues  
-_Yang-_

_Falling…_

_Into darkness…_

_So quickly…_

_Unable to recover…_

_Unable to…see…_

_I'm just…falling…_

"We're here!"

I jolted awake immediately at the sound of Kai's loud voice wrestling me out of the dream. His voice pulled me from the darkness I'd been dropping through, about to fall and shatter against the glass, stained by shadow, below. Actually, I hadn't really noticed that I had fallen asleep; one minute, I was thinking about what a 'Daddy Look' was, and the next I found my face pressed against the passenger window, probably hours later. The clock said it was three, giving me plenty of time to calculate that I had, in fact, dozed off for quite some time. I swear I'd slept just fine at home…I must've been in heavy need of rejuvenating after all the excitement this morning. _Fingers crossed I didn't drool a waterfall, _I thought, and inconspicuously checked my chin just to make sure before I looked for Kai.

He was leaning against his propped-open door, elbow lazily draped over the top. "Would ya look at that," he commented. A smile was fermenting on his face. There was something about his appearance that was different; it was the bright excitement doing a fancy ballroom dance over his features. _He wants to see his home, _said a dark voice in the back of my head, and I smirked.

_Long time, no see, _I commented.

_I've had nothing to say, _the Eye tattooed across my veins said tonelessly.

_Ironic, considering a lot of shit has happened lately. _I had noticed that the Mind's Eye was being a little quiet as of late, but decided arguing with my hand most likely _wasn't _the hottest option.I stretched my muscles and ducked my head down to look at this sacred monastery that Kai kept ranting about, but my expectations never could've lived up to what I saw. My jaw dropped.

A tall, voluptuous mountain glared down at me worse than Finn the Bully back when I went to Darkley's, more menacing than the fire ants that Brad had shoved on my bed and in my pillow case. At least a thousand steps led upwards into the highest peak, where what looked like Hogwarts glared down at me, a rectangular extravagancy just waiting to be touched. It was humungous, surrounded completely by a wall. The bricks or _whatever _it was made out of was a shade of brown. I gaped. There were no Hogwarts-y peaks, but there were definitely ridges and upper floors. It looked like some rich guy had just spat out one of his second houses onto the top of the mountain.

"Holy crap!" I gasped, and pushed open the door. My view didn't change much by stepping outside of the car. Like a little kid, I hung myself over the top of my door, staring with my mouth open wide. "You used to _live _here?" I cried.

Looking over at Kai, I saw a huge smile cracked across his face. "Looks like they did a little upgrading," he said, and closed his door.

I turned when I heard Seiko and Bokuyo stepping out the back. "HOME!" shouted the little boy, and he boosted himself towards the first step with little kid sugar-high capabilities, jumping up and down excitedly on it. "I'M HOME!" he cried happily.

"Wow. This definitely beats crappy old Underworld cells _any _day." Seiko raised her hand to visor her eyes, looking impressed with our new living quarters; she met my eyes with a gracious smirk. I smiled back at her, because before I started falling in my dream, I had dreamed of her.

A moment later, in the grass we'd pulled into at the end of this huge mountain, Rikku's van sidled up beside our miniature cruiser, the engine cut immediately. The doors sprang open. Nya, Jay, Zane, and Cole leaped out faster than I think Rikku had time to react. They launched outwards. "SWEET MOTHER MAY I!" Jay cried, and stared in shock. "Look at that! It looks like a five-star hotel!"

_Exactly what I thought, _I smiled, and looked towards Zane. "Yes, it is quite extravagant," he agreed. Kai rounded the hood of the car to jog towards them.

Nya made a bubbling sound with her mouth. I froze, hoping like a kid that she wouldn't see me, but of course she did. Nya saw _everything. _She ran towards me and slammed me up against the car door I'd just shut, squishing her whole body against me happily, even though I thought it was extremely weird. She made noises with her throat that I didn't understand, except for a few choice words. "House…cat…home…buhbee." I groaned. Oh, jeez. Nya's face brightened into a smile, and she pressed her face into my chest. I could feel my face heating. "Buhbee! Have here!" At that, my face turned beet red. I could feel it seeping into my neck. And then Nya did something I really, really, _really _wasn't expecting.

She launched herself onto the tips of her toes, wrapped her arms tightly around my neck, and pulled my mouth down against hers.

I never really expected my first kiss to, um…turn out like _this._

I liked Nya, but as a _friend. _She used to _babysit me. _Now she was kissing me tenderly, rubbing certain voluptuous body parts against me, and speaking of a child _I _didn't give her. Her warm lips tasted like cherries, her breath hot in my mouth. I felt more awkward than I would have if I was standing on stage singing Elvis Presley in my underwear. I tried to force her shoulders away, but she was like a freaking tree frog. She just _clung _to me. Tangling her fingers in my hair, asking for more that I wasn't going to give. A deeper heat spread across my face. _Oh, god, _I thought.

Nya broke the kiss abruptly, her face open and smiling. Her fingers latched onto my ears. "_HAIIII," _she purred, and giggled. So unlike Nya to be completely girly, but there was nothing I could do to undo what had just been upsettingly done…

I glanced up at Seiko, my face hot. Her eyes were wide, but she struggled to pretend like she wasn't feeling all these emotions burning deeply in her chest. In her attempt, she looked impassive, but there was something in her eyes, deep underneath the blue that made me feel awful. _Definitely _surprise, but not just that. Disappointment. Anger. Irritation. I opened my mouth, but she spoke over me, loud and clipped. "Careful, kiddies," she said, and even though she tried to hide it, I could hear the disappointed iciness in her tone. She started to stomp past us. "You could accidentally swallow each other whole."

"Seiko, I—" Trying wasn't worth it; she had already turned her back on me, moving towards the clod of my friends and _her _brother like she wasn't going to listen. Seiko sidled up beside Cole and grabbed his hand, accepting the wrap of his arm around her shoulders. At the same time, Nya muzzled into my chest. I also found myself not only watching Seiko leave me, but also facing my group of best friends, a robot, and a tiny little kid staring at me like I had grown three heads. _Especially _Kai. The silence made me turn into a tomato again. "N-Nya, could you—"

I was cut off. It was the sound of laughter. _Jay's _laughter, loud and boisterous, was penetrating the air with his yowls. Everyone turned to him. It was like the kitchen at home all over again. I winced. Worst day _ever._ "Oh—oh _jeez, _guys," Jay snorted, bending over to brace himself against his knees. "That was—that was _classic _stuff, right there." He practically could've fallen with laughter. Zane reached out a hand to keep him steady.

I half-expected Cole to look like he wanted to kill me, but he actually looked kind of…amused. In fact, everyone seemed like they understood something I didn't, which obviously was the subject matter of: Nya was infatuated with me being her 'baby daddy.' Why? I weaseled my hands between us and gently pushed her off, this time breathing a sigh of relief that she complied. Nya looked lovingly up at me. "Um…" I stepped to the side to put distance between us. Nya watched me move hungrily.

To my saving, Kai jogged up behind her, taking her out of my space bubble. Nya looked up at him, hesitated, finally then accepting him. "Hey, Nya, c'mon," he said, putting an arm around her waist and leading her in the opposite direction, "we're getting ready to go up to that house!" Nya clapped, her obsession with me forgotten, and I was allowed to breathe again. I hadn't realized I'd been holding in my breath until it whooshed out of me in a heave. I leaned back against the car. Great. Now I'd just offended Seiko and—

_Why should it matter to you what Seiko thinks? _I asked myself, straightening to join everyone else in their cluster. _It's not like you're dating her or anything. _

That's true, I thought, rubbing the back of my neck. I looked at her, but she was busy listening to something Cole was saying. I couldn't hear what it was. There was the sound of my heart dropping in the back of my mind. It _wasn't _like I was dating her. So why did I feel so guilty?

"So what now?" asked Jay, crossing his arms over his chest, abandoning the laughing fit. He turned to Rikku, who had stepped out of the van a while ago. The robot blinked emptily at him.

"Now," he said, turning to the soaring mountain behind him, "we climb."

* * *

Again, thank you for being wonderful people and putting up with my cruddy writing. :-3 You all deserve candy. *passes out candy for everyone*

Oh, and shout out to** JaymeBell **as the NfaN fan of the week? :-)

**BURNING FAN Question from Kairi, right from her mouth:** Quote "You read a lot of Ninjago fanfics and it's either NinjaxOC or NinjaxNinja. Personally, either pairing for me depends on who I'm reading about. I'm not into anything NinjaxNinja but ColexZane...but even that's a stretch for me...**Which do you prefer, NinjaxOC or NinjaxNinja? Or those of you who are neither? **I know my favorite NinjaxOC pairing is KaixNaoko, from **Wafflegirl0304's UNREAL. **An amazing fic for you to go check out cuz it's so good!" Unqote.

**Please answer the question for Kairi? Thanks! Also, thank you for reading, and on behalf of Kairi, go have an awesome day or night! **

**Emi and Kairi**


	39. Chapter 39

**CHAPTER39:  
**An Unexpected Visitor

"Whoa, whoa, _whoa, _there, guy," Jay stepped forward, outstretching his hand in a disbelieving motion that accompanied his furrowed eyebrows of seriousness. He stared into Rikku's empty eyes. "What do you mean, _climb? _Climb that whole _thing? _There are half a million steps on that mountain!"

"Well," Rikku said blatantly. His expression didn't change. "I'm sorry we couldn't build a hovercraft to carry you up."

Zane seemed to think it was funny, reacting with a laugh, but Jay was not amused. His face pinched disappointedly. He crossed his arms over his chest and stubbornly stood aside, like glaring at the mountains was going to reduce the amount of steps they'd have to walk. Personally, Cole wouldn't break a sweat walking up that mountain—it was practically his warm-ups every day—but Jay had always been one to dislike the epic implementation portions of their training. He reached over, chuckling, to ruffle his friend's mane of red hair. "Oh, c'mon, Sparkplug," he joked, watching Jay irritably duck out of his reach, "you afraid of a little physical exercise?"

_"No," _Jay disagreed, giving Cole a glare. "I just think that a million steps is a little _excessive." _

"But if you wish to keep out enemies," Zane offered, stepping forward at Cole's side to use his hand in a _duh _motion, "you should tire them before they reach your base. That way, once they get there, they will be easy to defeat."

_"Yeah," _Kai exclaimed with a glimmer of that very Kai-like brotherly acceptance on his face. He held up his hand for a high-five from the pale former-nindroid.

Jay pursed his lips in deeper disappointment. Cole laughed at the expression on his face; it was so _Jay. _He may not remember anything about his past, but he sure as hell hadn't forgotten his personality. As the lightning ninja turned away, towards the mountain before him, Cole looked down at his sister, still wrapped underneath the crook of his arm. Seiko looked like she was watching Bokuyo, particularly avoiding looking at Lloyd, who'd sidled up beside Kai and was constantly trying to catch her eye. Bokuyo was happily prancing around their group of eight, crying, "Home, home, home!" in a tone that meant he was _extremely _happy about being here. He stopped at Seiko's side to tug on her shirt. "MOMMY, MOMMY!" He cried. Cole rubbed his nose. Although Kai had already explained this to him on the sly, he was still having a hard time believing that this kid was Seiko's son from the future. The last thing he expected was for Seiko to ever _have _children. She despised them. And, call Cole crazy, but he wasn't enjoying the fact that Bokuyo's face looked exceedingly familiar. Cole had looked at that same face a hundred times before. His eyes _definitely _came from Seiko's genes, but the rest of him…Cole shook his head. He didn't mind the kid, but his face was starting to freak him out.

"Miss Seiko!" Cole turned his head when Zane said her name. His sister slowly responded from his peripheral vision. Zane's face smiled, friendly, at her. "Are you excited to see what lies beyond these walls?" He asked, gesturing to the mountain.

"I don't even know what this place is," Seiko said, looking over her shoulder at the monastery, "but I think it looks like something from _Harry Potter."_

"They definitely upgraded it," Kai agreed. Cole nodded.

"I don't remember it being so…huge."

"Dude, it has, like, six floors. It was _not _that huge last time. How did you build all this this?" Kai turned to Rikku, motioning to the monastery. The robot looked tiredly at him. Cole had the sense to know something was off by a great amount. Normally, robots didn't have the capacity to look so nauseated and worn, but somehow Rikku was pulling it off. He almost seemed to sway on his feet. He kept his body angled just in case the robot lost his footing and needed to be caught.

"I didn't. The Clockwork Army did."

"The…Clockwork Army?" Jay asked. Cole whistled.

"I haven't heard about them in a while," he admitted. It was true. He hadn't heard the term, not really, since he was aboard the _Bounty 2 _inside of Julien's secret room with all those caskets, listening to Caroline tell stories about the army of clockwork humanoids. Rikku turned his forlorn gaze on the vampire.

"They were all recently awakened," he said, but paused. "Or, really, some of them. The robots still locked in the Tomb have not been released, which is a good fifty of us."

"The…Tomb?" Jay asked, still wearing a skeptically aware expression. He leaned his shoulders backwards a little. "What's the Tomb, and why are they still in there?"

"The Tomb is where a lot of us hid after the Reckoning," Rikku supplied. He shook on his feet enough for Cole to shift closer. "However, I don't know where the Tomb is. No one does except for Caroline; that is where she retrieved me from. The spot where it is has been completely urbanized and unrecognizable. And since Caroline is dead, the Tomb is lost, as well as the many friends locked inside of it."

"God," Kai breathed after a moment of silence, almost honoring the misplaced robots. "I'm sorry."

"What for? It is not your fault."

"Yeah, but I—"

He never finished. At that exact moment, the light behind Rikku's eyes that kept them illuminated shut off, and his body went rigid. His head dropped to rest his chin against his covered chest. _"Powering down," _said an automatic voice that didn't belong to Rikku, sounding from somewhere inside of him. _"Energy level zero percent; recharge battery."_

Well, that would definitely explain the sick way Rikku had been standing around. Cole sighed, unsure of what to do next. How did you go about with a battery-dead robot? Were they supposed to carry him up the steps or leave him there? Rikku was the only one who understood how to approach the six-floored monastery, and the most significant adult here. At Cole's side, Jay's jaw dropped. _Oops, _Cole thought after a moment, realizing it too late. Zane, Jay, and Nya didn't know that Rikku was a robot!

"Powering…down?" asked Zane slowly, trying to understand. He stepped forward to approach the still form of his brother, his hand outstretched as if to graze the robot's stiff shoulder, but he jerked his hand back at the last second. "What…is the meaning of this?"

"Yeah, what's the big idea?" Jay stepped forward. Unlike Zane, he boisterously prodded Rikku on the shoulder, practically knocking the robot over. If it weren't for Kai, swiftly jumping behind the elder Montgomery before he crashed against the ground, catching him, Rikku would've broken some vital part of his body. Seiko's hand tightened in a clench around Cole's shirt. _Crap, _he thought. She didn't know either. Not that it was as impacting as it was to Zane and Jay, but difficult to explain nonetheless. Cole rubbed the back of his neck as Kai straightened the stiff droid into standing.

"Guys," Kai said, keeping his hands braced against Rikku's back. Lloyd moved over to help him adjust the droid's feet into letting him stand on his own. His face looked grim.

"What is this?" Zane asked, more urgent. He reached forward to grab Rikku's flopping hands. His eyes were round. Cole's probably would've been, too, if he were in that position. "Why is he not moving? What is the matter? What happened to him? Rikku! _Rikku_!" Zane's cries called insistently, afraid that his brother was dead; Cole wasn't quite sure what was happening, but it was only a matter of charging up that would bring the automaton back to life. Cole met Kai's eyes over Rikku's straight shoulder. They shared a solemn expression of question (_How the hell do we explain this?) _and worry for Rikku, and importantly _Zane, _who was freaking out. He grabbed his brother's hands. His knees buckled, leaving him kneeling before the sole of his mourning. Tears were in his eyes. "Rikku! Rikku, please, open your eyes! _Rikku!" _

Cole opened his mouth to give it a starting push, but his prepared soliloquy was disturbed.

"Nothing you say will call him back," said a voice from behind him that belonged to neither of the seven gathered around Zane's prayer. There was a moment of silence as the voice sunk into Cole's bones. He felt it stir inside of his memory, plunging him deeper into the sea of retention inside of his mind. That voice…the last he'd heard it, it had come before with evil, tainted with darkness, anger, and worst of all, betrayal. The octaves crept across his spine with every word. _Could he trust them now, when before all they'd spoken was lies? _"His power levels must've been lower than he let on. And to that: He is a mechanical human, Zane. He is a robot, like the majority of those inside the monastery. Like _me_."

Zane slowly turned around, still braced on his knees. His eyes, reddened with tears, crawled across who spoke.

Cole met Kai's eyes, and their widened shock matched his own. _How can this be…? _

Jay whirled.

Seiko turned her head to peer over Cole's arm.

Lloyd's eyes could've popped out of his head.

Nya stared in wonder.

Bokuyo, pausing his prance around their circle, stared, and after a moment, a wide, unmatchable smile crept across his face. Cole felt himself try to comprehend, but after a moment, he needed to see to believe. He turned his gaze over his shoulder.

And there he stood, dressed in his elegant, particular white and black kimono, his long white beard falling over the Chinese etchings of his breast, braced in his hands a staff of bamboo. Blue eyes, encircled by wrinkles, met Cole's straight on. He felt himself suck in a surprised breath. He was just the person they needed to see.

Bokuyo hurled himself into the distance. "SENSEI!" cried the little boy, and bowed before his teacher. Cole's jaw dropped open. "You're back!"

Sensei Wu smiled down at Bokuyo, then raised his eyes to all of the Ninja, sleeping robot, and girls around him. He took a few paces forward, using the bamboo staff as his walking cane—a normal act of the old man—and digging into the crust of the earth underneath him. He sidled up beside Cole with a knowing smile on his face. "I'll bet _none _of you saw that coming," he said, and stuck out his staff to poke Zane on the shoulder. The tear-ridden human stared up, red-rimmed, but in wonder. "Don't worry about your brother. Once we get inside the monastery, there is a special place for him to charge up. Once he's done, he will awaken, my student. Do not worry."

"Wait a second, there, Speedy," Jay interjected. He braced his hands on his hips. "You said you're a _robot? _Who are you, anyway?"

Sensei Wu tilted his chin. "Why, Jay," he said, falsely aghast, "I would assume you remembered _me, _of everyone here. After all, you _were _the one who asked me to teach Lloyd about where babies come from." There was a twinkle in Sensei's eye that would never have been there if he was on the evil side. Cole grinned. _Sensei, _he thought in relief, and wanted to pull the old man into a hug, but refrained. Instead, he watched understanding dawn on Jay's face.

"_You're _the Sensei guy?" He asked, pointing. Sensei blinked in response. "Wow. I was _not _expecting that."

"Sensei Wu?" Seiko murmured from underneath the shelter of Cole's arm. Cole looked down into her blue irises, looking up at him curiously. "This is who you were talking about all the time?"

Sensei turned his eyes on her. He looked welcoming, pulling into the center of the circle to reach forward and gently tap her shoulder with the end of his trusty staff. Seiko, unlike Cole expected, didn't try to deflect the blow using brute force. "We have met before," said Sensei. Seiko nodded.

"I know, I just…didn't know that's who you were."

Sensei smiled at her. "It's a pleasure to formally meet you, Seiko." He bowed. She stared with raised brows.

"I am _not _curtsying," she announced, but said, "but it's nice to meet you too, Mister Sensei Wu-who-Cole-was-always-gushing-about."

"Uncle!" inhaled Lloyd, and he stepped forward. Sensei Wu directed his attention towards his nephew with a gracious smile. "Where were you? Why did you leave us?" He tentatively reached out, and with a chuckle, Wu wrapped his arms around the boy, hug that Lloyd looked like he needed. He gave Lloyd a _thunk _on the back of his head with the staff. "Ow!" Lloyd pulled away, rubbing the tender spot on his scalp with a pinched eye.

"It is rude to pry," Wu said. "Have I not taught you anything?" Without waiting for a response, he turned, holding out a weathered old hand for Zane to take. Zane stared at his palm, bleary eyed, before clasping his hand around the bizarrely vein-y offering of Wu. The older man tugged him up. Zane was far taller than Sensei, forcing his teacher to tilt his head backwards to be able to actually look at him while he dragged his hands over his red eyes, swiping away the tears. "Why are you crying?" The old man asked.

"I was sad," Zane replied.

"What for?" pried Sensei. Cole got the feeling this was some sort of teaching tactic.

"I was afraid that Rikku was dead."

"Why did that make you sad?"

"Because he is my brother."

"But you don't know him. How could you be sad that he is dead?"

Zane rubbed his eye. "I don't like pain, and I don't like sadness, and I don't like things that combine the two. If Rikku died, then I would feel awful because no one as nice as him deserves to die. Not even a robot." He bowed his head. "But if what you say is true, and Rikku is able to come back to life inside of the monastery, then I will not be sad anymore."

Wu smiled. "Sadness is not acceptable from here on out. Understood, everyone?" He said, louder, for everyone to hear. He looked Jay, Nya, Lloyd, Kai, Zane, Cole, and Seiko directly in the eyes, his pointed glance lingering specifically on Seiko for half an instant longer. Cole had a feeling this was somehow tied to the 'sadness' that Zane had referenced in the drive here. He didn't know what it meant, this so-called misery that she was feeling in her heart, or what it was tied to. She'd always been a little bit off the _other _side of the tracks, the unstable side, but he'd never really reflected her to be _unhappy _before. Unhappy as in sad unhappy. "From now until the end of our journey, we may only feel strength, loyalty, hope," Sensei began treading in circles around their band, using his staff, digging it into the ground with his arm poised behind his back. He gave Lloyd a long look. "Determination, devotion, happiness, joy, nobility, other contributing emotions that make our journey stronger, and above all, the golden feeling: _love." _At this, the staff swung around in an arc and smacked Jay hard on the shoulder. He yelped. "We will _not _be Debbie Downers, nor Sad Sylvesters, nor Unloving Ursulas, nor Depressing Daves. Understood? We are, from this point on, a strong-willed team. A _crusade." _A glimmer sparkled in his eyes. "The _Ninja's_ Crusade."

"Wait," Kai reached out his hand, catching Sensei's attention. "The Ninja's Crusade. Like…you mean…the Seven?"

"Oh, swell. More words with capital letters that I DON'T GET. Will someone explain this to me?" Jay whined, but everyone ignored him.

A knowing look lingered in Sensei's eyes, but whatever knowledge he assimilated, he withheld until further notice. In its place, he responded with an off-topic comment. Something that Sensei had been famous for back in the day. Cole rubbed his face. He couldn't believe he'd just said _back in the day. _Lord, he was starting to sound like his father. "I see you listened to my advice and altered your appearance," he said. "Well done."

"Yeah, well," Kai reached up, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck where the long spirals of black hair dangled past, "I couldn't have done it without Dani."

At the sound of her name, Cole saw Lloyd's face blacken. The instant it did, Sensei whirled on him. "I said no Unloving Ursulas!" He jammed the staff into Lloyd's shoulder. His nephew grunted under the shove. "Looks like you failed your first test."

"Test? I was being tested?" Lloyd's golden brows rose. Sensei closed his eyes. "But I didn't study!"

Kai snorted. "Get over it, kid. Life ain't always fair, but if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain." He reached over and wrapped an arm around Lloyd's neck. The younger boy fell into Kai's brotherly grasp with a groan at the headlock.

"Dude, now you sound like Jay's old _You Are a Good Man _cassette tapes," Lloyd said. Then, to accentuate: "_You are a good man. You are strong, you are powerfully willed, and you listen to the sounds of nature around you that contribute to your ever-striving personality. You persevere through the constant storms that are attacking your 'farmland,' but all you see is that the rain is feeding your crops and more money will come your way, not the floods." _

Cole, Kai, and Sensei understood, but it would've been funnier if Jay understood, too. Cole sighed. Sometimes there were perks to the loss of your best friends' memories—like the fact that Jay wasn't tearing out his throat, trying to kill him because he'd slept with Nya—but overall, it was miserable not having those memories to look back on. Zane and Jay just cluelessly listened without understanding, and it made Cole feel upset. But, remembering that Sensei had said they weren't going to be Debbie Downers, he straightened his back and tried to think positively. Building on the discussion they'd had in the car, they would be able to revive the memories of his remaining friends. Of course they could!

…Right?

* * *

I know, I suck at endings. You can throw rocks at me. -.-"

Kairi says hello to all of you and wishes you the BEST DAY EVER TODAY! I think you guys would be happy to hear that she's actually getting really better. She was happy ALL DAY TODAY! it was really cool to see, and since she was happier, Ru was happier, and I think the whole house was just a bubble of happiness. we probably annoyed the crap out of our neighbors, but they can go eat a dead cactus because they're all disgusting people anyway.

So maybe within a few days, I won't have to write for you anymore. not that I don't like it, it's just really hard to make sure that I portray everyone right. i want to keep the characters consistent with the way they've been throughout the book, but...jeez. taking over for other people is hard!

On behalf of Kairi, go have an awesome day or night, and please leave a review of what you thought of this chapter!

Emi


	40. Chapter 40

CHAPTER 40:  
Remembering Father

When Danielle pulled into the driveway of the towering black coliseum, Maya curled her lip at the disgusting cobwebs and faltering pieces that contrived it. She turned her head towards the robot in the driver's seat to practically spit on her. "What are we doing HERE? It looks like it's been here Since before time had a name."

Danielle's face remained plain. "We are here to pick someone up," she said, ducking her head. The coliseum was only half-assembled, it's upper walls cracked and bleeding rocks onto the asphalt. Spiderwebs bigger than Maya herself covered the gaps and connected the two large, thick ebony pillars that held up the front porch. Unlike most coliseums, this one was located far into the forest, practically infiltrated completely by ingrown branches and grass and leaves. The stairs were long rows, only totaling completely to eight of them, but in her heels Maya wasn't sure she'd be able to make it past the marsh that Danielle had stuck them in. She'd driven completely off the road into the depths of the forest to arrive shadily at this big dump. Maya was certain it hadn't been used since before she was born. Following Danielle's lead, she stepped out of the car into the squishy, rotted earth below. After making a pointed noise of disgust, she crossed her arms over her Chest.

"Look, it's nice that we're playing pickup and all, but this place smells like wet dog. I think I'll just wait here." She looked around. Surprisingly, she heard the robot snort.

"You obviously dont know how a linking spell works," Danielle said, and started forward. Maya initially thought nothing of it—until she felt a strange force, tugging on her body across the marsh towards Danielle. It was so strong that she was forced to start walking forward before she ended up collapsing and being dragged over the dirt in her five-hundred dollar leather jacket and two-hundred dollar designer jeans. Her expensive heels dug into the soggy earth underneath her. She suppressed a deep scowl and followed behind the robot.

Danielle ascended the steps in her own tacky Mom Jeans and sneakers. Maya roved over her lack of fashion sense. Why they were here, just to pick someone up, stepping out of the car, was beyond her own knowledge—AND liking. Her heels tattered against the coliseum's echoing cement and ricocheted off the pillars, swung around the archway of the door, and into the deep crevice of the coliseum's main event: the arena. She sighed heavily. "And who exactly are we escorting, Witchypoo?" she growled, moving her arms into a cross again. Danielle stepped into the doorway without answering. The coliseum's history gaped before her.

Maya would've been awed by how magnificent the sight was, IF she was a history buff, but the past wasn't something Maya liked to look back on. Row after row of shattered, crumbling seats gaped before her in awful Memory. Skeletons of all shapes, conditions, ans sizes were scattered over the seats and ground. Maya kicked aside a gaping skull with her boot. Turning to Danielle, she raised her brows. "Soooo?" she asked, ready to dive for the witch's throat if need be, when she caught sight of something burrowed in the circle of the arena.

Someone was just SITTING there. Waiting. Maya caught a glimpse of fiery red hair and a pale white shirt. Then, in a spit of disgust, she haunched herself over as if to attack. THAT'S who they were waiting for? Blonde couldn't think of a better person for Maya to take out her pent up anger on—

"HEEL, Kiko," snapped Dani, throwing an angry glance over her shoulder at the vampire. In the arena, the figure maintained a frozen lotus position against the cement and sand, oblivious to the visitors. "She's of no harm to us."

"Oh? Really? Like the way lions are completely friendly to antelope, right?" Maya scoffed and wiggled her hips, preparing to hurl herself over the side and into the arena's deathbed, her hatred and anger for multiple things her stimulant. However, as she was readied to jump over, a large strike of pain shot through her brain, accompanied by a high pitched ringing. It disabled Maya into dropping her offensive stance. She held her temples as if to block out the noise, but the ringing struck across her skull and poured into the cerebral portion of her brain. She cried out and fell to her knees.

"I said HEEL," Danielle growled through her teeth. Maya cried out again at the second zap of pain flying through her head. "I have the ability to completely WIPE OUT your mind with just a glance. I can stun you into incapacitation. You can't fight back," she added when Maya failed an attempt to stand. "You're completely and totally unable to function. I call it 'wailing your mind,'" she said, and gave a little laugh. Maya grunted. Spit drizzled attractively out the corner of her mouth. She glared upwards from the corner of her eye at the robot. "So I'd suggest that you hang tight and listen to what I say, or you might end up like him." Danielle gestured to an askew skeleton beside Maya's crumpled form.

"I'm not—" Maya hissed through clenched teeth, "—your little bitch."

"Oh," Danielle smiled sweetly, turning to the rail again to push her foot onto it, causing the metal to fail and let loose. She yanked off the section she'd broken so she could clamber to the top. The zing in Maya's mind was beginning to fade, but a painful reminder still lingered in her ears. "But that's all you ever are, Maya. Just somebody's...little...bitch." Then, Danielle hurled herself over the side and free-fell into the arena below.

...

Danielle landed neatly on the soles of her worn out All-Stars. She hit the dusty cement running towards the girl crumpled in the middle of the arena. Behind her, the sounds of Maya followed suit with grumbles and incoherent spits of fire as the linking spell drug her closely behind. She chose to completely ignore the person she couldn't stand the most and instead ran towards the girl. Her fiery mane of red curls looked familiar from childhood, like a bloody halo wrapped around her moderately-creamy, freckled face. Her hazel eyes turned towards Danielle with nothing, no hinting that she recognized her sister; but that didn't matter right now. _Daddy did as promised,_ she thought, remembering their last conversation. She dropped in the sand beside her reborn sister.

"_I'm afraid I won't be making any more robots, daughter," Julien had sighed the evening that Danielle had come upon him in his new workshop, a cluttered space of tools and garbage he needed to throw out. On his workbench was the last of his creations, only half assembled at the time; to look at Carolyne's reborn body made Danielle sick._ How many more times will my sister be tortured and recreated?_ She'd wondered, but understood her father's unwilling exempt to let his beloved daughter go._ _Carolyne had, after all, always been Daddy's favorite. _

_"Why not?" Dani had asked, fingering the red hair that matched Carolyne's exactly, wrapped neatly in a box beside her sister's body. It was silky under her sensitive fingers. _

_"I'm too old," he admitted sheepishly, "and would rather go sleep than do any more robots. It's tedious work. And... I can feel myself getting more tired by the day... It's just so hard to continue, love," he whispered, and reached for her frozen hand, lingering softly over Carolyne's unattached hair. "I was supposed to die YEARS ago, but... It seems... God wanted me here, with you and your sister, and Zane." Julien had sighed. Danielle's pinched expression came required by the disfavor to accept her father's choice. "But now, I want to sleep. Just...sleep. And I will miss you and my family very, very much," he'd added, wrapping his bony, scratched fingers around Dani's shaking hand, lacing his with her own. He reached a free hand upwards to wipe away the coarse tears starting to trickle down her cheeks. "I'm sorry," he added. Dani had been forced to watch his own eyes start to redden. "Tell Zane goodbye for me."_

Looking at Carolyne's live form now, she realized that her reborn sister was a reminder that her father was no longer among the living. She would forever roam as what would always be _the Tinkerer's Last Fiddle, _the final thing that Julien Juliens ever worked on before he fell asleep forever in his cot at his new workshop. _That day wasn't that long ago, _she thought, and felt it hard to breathe for a brief, sufferable moment. Danielle ducked her head. _Oh, Father_, she thought, trying to hold back the same tears that had partially escaped the day she last spoke to him. It was hard to look at Carolyne now, fully assembled, prepared for righteousness and holy work, and not see her father's same eyes staring back at her, a goodbye hidden in them. She sniffled and looked towards her sister. Dani had to remember her mission. Carolyne's new body had roamed here with the coordinates that Julien had programmed into them, a place where he'd told her "she'd meet someone who would take her home." A message like that could be easily mistaken as an orphanage, but thankfully, Carolyne didn't turn to common sense for help. Dani reached forward. "Hello," she said simply. "Do you know who I am?"

The lenses in Carolyne's eyes focused and unfocused. it was strange to see in such a human-like pair of eyes, contracting like a camera lens. "No."

Her voice tinkled like it had before as a human. _Father always got it right, _she thought, remembering how well hr father was when tuning the voices of his robots as though tuning a guitar. It was always a perfect match. Danielle's heart swelled, looking at her sister. But this time, it was a _good _swell; if Carolyne didn't know who Dani was, that meant there was no way her past could influence her future choices. Thankfully Father hadn't built her with her old memory chip. She took her outstretched hand and placed it over her heart. "My name is Dani," she said. "Do you know who _you _are?"

Carolyne's eyes refocused again. "My data tells me my system title is _Carolyne Juliens." _

Dani nodded, smiling. So far, so good. "Do you know why you're here?"

The soft sound of Maya approaching slowly from behind was tracked in Danielle's mind. The linking spell, however dangerous, brought her closer. Maya would be "chained" to Danielle for however long until the spell was lifted, which came with pros and cons. The pros? Whatever happened to Dani _also _happened to Maya, and she could never leave her side, anticipating a great amount of monitoring. Maya could never make a seriously dangerous act without Danielle being there to watch. The _con, _however, was that she didn't believe Maya _cared _if she died or not. If Dani died, there would be no one to rebuild her, and she knew that everyone _needed _her here.

"I was ordered here specifically by an unmanned set of coordinates that instructed me to follow their longitudinal paths from my previous stationary, located at sixty degrees-"

"Good," Dani interrupted, setting aside all the detailed information that Carolyne was bound to give her. "Now, I think that we should probably get going-"

"Where?"

"It's a safe place," Dani said softly, taking her sister's hand. On her wrist, just underneath the heel of her palm, was the tattoed symbol of Julien's trademark, the mark that was inside of Zane's panel (as a robot) and just about everything else he created. Danielle flipped her own hand over. A twin mark was posted in the same place as Carolyne's. She watched her sister curiously eye the mark as she said, "I'm just like you."

"A humanoid?" asked Carolyne monotonically.

Danielle nodded. "Affirmative."

The lenses in Carolyne's eyes adjusted again. She was assessing her sister from afar, scanning for probable misfaults, lies, or directory confirmation. After a moment, a _ping _sounded from somewhere inside of her system. "Confirmation reached. Subject is of humanoid quality. Mechanical mechanism assembled from-"

Danielle clapped a hand over her sister's mouth. The details, once again, were unnecessary. She laughed. "Come on, Carolyne," she said, standing. Her sister mimed the movement stiffly. _She's going to take some time to getting broken in, _she thought, and smiled. "There's someone _very _special I want you to meet."

"SURELY not me, right?" interuppted the obnoxious vampire form beside her.

Danielle glared at her from the corner of her eye. The high-strung, leaned-back, expensively-dressed vampire smirked humorlessly at her. There was a steel venom located in her eyes, and Danielle wished she could impersonate it. She curled her lip instead. There was a moment of solace when she heard her sister's equally steely voice sound from behind her. "My early assessment tells me that you are not human, nor are you very well liked."

Dani laughed. "No. She isn't." She turned back to the entrance of the coliseum, staring up at it as the sun trickled through the open ceiling. "Now. How about we get going before the sun turns me to a pile of melted metal, and _you _to ash?" she added, glaring at Maya again. The vampire scowled, but it made Dani laugh again, remembering the crippling way she crumbled underneath Danielle's awesome power. She had the upper hand. Sometimes it felt _really _good to be a witch.

* * *

That might've not been very good, but...intuition told me it was in a "Fair" ranking.

You guys want to hear some good news, though?

**KAIRI HAS RECOVERED! She's back to her old self, smiling, and to make herself feel better, she's making references to Ninjago ****_all _****the time. Earlier today, she was making fun of Grandma...My grandma always says "undershorts" instead of "underwear," and when we were playing with Ru in the sprinkler, I sprayed her with the hose right across her pants, so Kairi looked up at me and went, "EMIKO! YOU MEANIE! ...I should've brought an extra pair of 'undershorts'!" It was pretty funny. (A Jay reference, if anyone missed that, cuz it was supposed to be "underwear".) :-D It was so cute, and she made Ru make a semi-laughing noise. It was so. So. Cute. :-) **

**So I may or may not be writing NfaN after today...I hope not, because admittedly, I miss Kairi's surprising writing, too. **

**On behalf of my beloved sister, go have an awesome day or night!**

**-Emiko V. **


	41. Chapter 41

**So hallo everyone*u* I missed you all! **

**I just want to say thank you to everyone who responded to my absence. It was YOU guys who brought me out of my depressed-horrific-suicidal stupor. :/ But I'm better now! You guys are all amazingly beautiful people for saying such kind things to me, and I promise NEVER to forget what you all did for me! Thank you for saying such kind things when really I don't always deserve them. You will forever be in my heart. **

**I hope I can PARTIALLY repay you with this chapter...it's not as great as I had planned. -.- I tried my hardest. I'm still workin' out the kinks of getting into the swing of writing again...DotN has not been updated in FOREVER! **

**Enjoy to the best of your human abilities. *3***

* * *

**CHAPTER FOURTY-ONE:  
**Incorrect Conclusions

_-Yin-_

I watched this mysterious Sensei Wu with a close eye. It wasn't that I didn't trust the guy—after all, Cole had put countless amounts of effort into completely describing every detail of the guy who saved him from himself, so I had practically been _taught _to trust him—I mean, he was great and all. Very positive. But no one had ever told me about the _robot _portion of our journey. Now that I thought about it, I think I might've heard Snickerdoodles say something about robots now or then, I just hadn't been paying the attention it would've taken to retain that information. With the responsiveness of a plate, I wasn't very well equipped to listen when my mind was elsewhere.

As was currently demonstrated.

Kai—the tall, muscular guy with black hair who was (yeah, I'll swallow my pride and say it) a freakin' _hunk_—was saying something to his beloved Sensei, but I wasn't listening at all. I saw his pale lips move but never once read what was flowing out of his mouth. I was too busy wandering off inside of myself to understand.

I was thinking about how _I _got mixed up in this mess. I mean, truthfully, I had never actually _agreed _to this. Sure, I had been considering following along with the previous, evil, dark Kai's plot to steal me, but I hadn't been aware of the baggage that came with it. One minute I'm bashing guards' heads in with the leg of a chair, and the next I'm being stabbed with a needle filled with green liquid and fainting all over myself. The problems wrong with that are _exhibit_ _A: _Who the hell does that? Random, attractive guy with a lilt in his voice just pops in, stops me from murdering six hundred people, then stabs me and drags me into a giant temple-thing, where I proceed to battle it out with a _really freaky vampire _who just so _happens _to be the Nya Smith that Cole always talked about over the phone, then get attacked by creatures I didn't even know _existed, _usedas a pawn, after which I am held hostage then sucked into the Underworld with a stupid Green Ninja. That does _not _happen, but somehow, I ended up being at the caboose. I had heard about these little Ninja dudes, including my brother, all the time in the newspapers. Idly watching, standing by and reading about them over the shoulders of the nurses—whether they be male or female—and envying everything my brother is able to do. _The Ninja have done it again! _The title would exclaim, showing a spontaneously-snapped picture of one of the Ninja beating the craploads out of a snake, skeleton, rock-man, or etcetera. I would look, see the heroes that everyone loved, but not really _know _what they did. You know what I mean? I'd know who they were after the myriad conversations I'd eavesdropped on by the mingling nurses, but I'd never been the one to be on the sidelines to watch the live, action-packed war between a Ninja and a creature. No front-row seats for me. So I had never understood the extent of them, but somehow I was now standing beside them, two of which who apparently knew nothing of themselves, and a pregnant girl unable to form words clinging to Lloyd Garmadon like he was attached to her at the hip. I particularly tried not to look at their pairing. I didn't wanna _gag _all over them.

Not that I was _bugged _by it or anything, but Lloyd hadn't ever suggested he was in a relationship. He'd always seemed like the type of guy who wasn't interested in that, or whatever. He just didn't look like a dude who made that commitment. Much less getting her _pregnant._ Cole had never mentioned that part to me. Ever. Apparently, the world worked in strange ways, because there they were holding hands right in front of my face, and not to mention the big _smacker _she'd given him on the mouth minutes ago. I was still completely dumbfounded. I mean, dude, talk about _ironic_! Picking at the skin peeling around my nail, I brought them subconsciously to my lips to gnaw on them. I know I said I wasn't going to look at her, but I inconspicuously ran my eyes over her—just once, like a brush of my gaze, nothing serious. I guess she was _sort of _pretty…big, round brown eyes around a small face, with her dark brown hair dangling at her shoulders…tiny body if you looked around the fatness of her stupid, fat stomach…yeah, I guess she was…mildly attractive. But definitely nothing I pictured Snickerdoodles being with. She looked more like someone who would be with Waddles over there. ("Waddles" being Jay because of the way that dude _fidgets. _Seriously. Just _sit still, _will you?)

I felt a scowl morph my face into darkness. _I don't know why you're so concerned, _I thought, letting my bangs dangle before my right eye. _Snickerdoodles can date whoever he wants, for all you care. It's Snickerdoodles. Move on, Seiko. Not. That. Big. A. Deal. _I listened to myself—for about half a millisecond. I purposely didn't look at him for fear of what his expression said. Happiness? Contentment? Bliss? I didn't know what love felt like, frankly not even caring, but you had to be in love to want that baby. Especially out of _those _two in an odd pair. So his face had to read something of _love. _All that gabbly-gook nasty sissy-shit that I didn't enjoy. But…still. The thought of him being with her made me feel a burn deep in my chest.

It was envy and jealousy's baby. The thing broiling in my chest, I mean. Envelousy. Or maybe Jenvy. Jealenvy? Enjealvy? Enealousvy? I shook my head. Whatever.

I turned and buried my face into Cole's chest. Feeling his arms wrap tightly around me in response brought me the comfort I so desperately craved. Cole's chin pressed against the crown of my head. I had always loved how Cole never _asked _me why I needed to be held. He always just did, without arguing, without declining—he just did it. Cole's heart had always been large. It reminded me of how much I _missed _my brother, and I breathed in his scent, shifty and bathed in cologne, with a hint of that irresistible smell. As a demon's creature, my brother's skin came with a sickly sweet scent that lured in prey, that made those around him swoon to how _intoxicating_ he smelled. My brother, the vampire. I smiled sourly. Was it masochistic to enjoy your brother's inhumanity as an advantage over those around you?

"I can carry him," Cole said suddenly. His voice rumbled underneath my ear. "It's really not a big deal. He'd weigh nothing."

I turned my head, keeping my cheek pressed against Cole's chest. Sensei Wu faced us, his eyes praising. Proud, almost. Dunno _why, _but they definitely were. Everyone looked in our direction, especially Kai, who I found was looking at _me _rather than above my head at my brother, where everyone else seemed to focus on. I flinched slightly. I wasn't expecting him to be looking at me, but I met his gaze head on. Unlike most people, he didn't deflect himself from my epic stare, but rather looked into my eyes deeper, searching for something. There was a thing flashing deep within his irises that I longed to understand, but he sheathed his emotions from me quickly and turned his eyes onto Cole, myself quickly forgotten. "You sure you can handle it?" He asked conceptually. Cole snorted.

"Of _course _I can!" He laughed. "Have you forgotten that I'm the Ninja of Earth, _plus _a vampire? Carrying Mister Roboto shouldn't be an issue." Over my head, Cole nodded to Rikku's still, dead form. I shivered and grabbed onto the tail of Cole's jacket, just for good measure.

I felt something whirl around me then. I glanced at my knees, where the indescribably miniature Bokuyo pranced around our legs, cheering happily, "I can't wait for Mommy to meet Daijiro! DAIIIIJIIIROOOOO! Yay! Daijiro is Bokuyo's best friend," he added, and grabbed onto my hand, positioned in a clutch around Cole's shirt. I flinched. Yeesh. I know I was _mildly _accepting of him and all, but…really…holding my hand…I…

…Had quite the hard time understanding. I'd seen it, the _barely-even-there-but-sure-as-hell-there_ of something when I was in the woods before we'd left Twink-Snickers' house. When Lloyd had raised Bokuyo into his arms, carrying him away, I swear to all Almighty deities that I recognized Boku's round face at that _exact frickin' moment_. I looked at T-S, then I looked at Boku, and practically pissed my pants right then and there. _Fuck. No. _Thinking about it now, my body began to tremble, but more so with anger than fear. If Snickers was _sooo in love _with his pretty little girlfriend, then why the hell would I be looking at _my _apparent child and seeing _HIS _stupid face in my son's?

What if Bokuyo got it wrong? What if _I _wasn't his mother? What if, in the far off future, when the "Green Ninja" told me to take "Grandpa" and run, I was taking them for someone else because that _someone _couldn't take them…themselves?!

Oh. My god. EPIPHANY.

Bokuyo wasn't mine. He couldn't be. I had to be taking him, in the future, and running with this grandfather into Tokyo because obviously Bokuyo's parents couldn't come, too. I was apparently the only survivor, 'cause everyone got slaughtered by Shadow Dancers and such. He only called me "Mommy" because he didn't know his real one, who currently didn't know the art of speaking English. (_Damn her...)_ But Bokuyo hadn't _mentioned _he was running away with me and the gramps I was hauling around. _He had to have forgotten that part of the story, _I thought. Either way, he couldn't be mine.

I mean, really, what did we have in common, anyway? Bokuyo didn't look _anything like me, _save for the eye color, but his were about three shades off of mine. Completely coincidental. When I looked at him now, all I could see was the disgustingly angelic face of Twinkies staring back at me, minus the fact that Boku's cheesy smile was all his own. It made my stomach roll tightly. I was on a dangerous roller coaster, about to fall off cut tracks and plummet facial experiences first into the pavement beneath, not to mention all the pedestrians I'd be killing on my way down. So the kid _couldn't be _mine. He belonged to Speechless Queen over there, and when whatever happened to her in the future happened, she tossed him at me and made _me _handle him with this "Grandpa". A grandfather who obviously had to be either Nya's dad or Damon, which I was gambling Damon.

A sick part of me was relieved that I wasn't Bokuyo's mother. I don't know why. And the other part of me got really depressed. Even though I'd only known him since this morning, he was kind of growing on me. His happiness, his big smile, the constant references to me as his mother—it was a connection that bound us, somehow. A reminiscing from the future intertwining our destinies. It was…I kind of…

_…Liked _it.

I hate kids, don't get me wrong here. They're stupid, ugly, obnoxious, squirmy things that come out of us, that _we _have to take care of. But Bokuyo…having been alone the majority of my life, the thought of having a baby in my arms, a child that wanted _me, _that _I _could take care of and just _me, _made me feel a little fuzzy. Warm inside. Now, don't go thinking I'm softening up or anything, 'cause I'll find you and smack you twenty times to remind you that I'm _not _soft. It's just the thought of having a baby, one who was my _own _and no one else's_—_it made me feel really warm_. _As much as I hate squirmy things, I _wanted _one. I wanted to carry one and hold one. Mine. All mine.

And now, having pieced the puzzle together, knowing he wasn't _mine, _I was damned_. _Fuck. Fuck, fuck, wonderfuk_. No baby for you, _said a dark voice in my head; it didn't belong to me. I pressed my face into Cole's chest, harnessing myself into his embrace to ward off my depression. I was admiring a child who belonged to Speechless Queen and Snickerdoodles. Bokuyo was sprouting inside of her stomach RIGHT NOW, the one I'd just glared at a minute ago.

What kind of idiot was I?

Silly question. I was _always _an idiot, falling for this kind of shit. My fists clenched so horridly I could feel my nails peeling into my skin. _Of course you don't have your own kid, _spat that voice hatefully. _Who in this world would be stupid enough to love you? Want to have a _child _with you? You're Seiko. The insane bitch. You wouldn't have a child. Your "Speechless Queen" is easier off getting men than _you _are—and she doesn't even have to try, unlike you!_

"If you're up to it," said Kai's voice, breaking me out of my shocking stupidness. Cole tilted his chin against the crown of my head.

"Lemme go. Gotta go carry the nindroid's brother."

I reluctantly released my own brother, keeping my head bowed to the grass underneath my feet._ Of course not_, I figured disappointedly, feeling my shoulders actually _sink _and my hopes deflate. I became too attached to things, regardless of the time frame I had to become acquainted with them, and this time was no different than all the other times I'd been let down by something I was emotionally involved with.. _Of course I wouldn't be a mother. I'm not exactly parental material. _

But what was worse: the feeling I got knowing that Bokuyo wasn't mine, or the feeling I got when I realized that meant Twinkies didn't want me after all?

* * *

**Globit. -3- Told ya. Not so awesomey. **At least the Ninja will start walking up the stairs next time 'cause Cole offered to carry Rikku...HAHA! That's going to be funny. Shouldn't be too big a struggle, right? No?

Anyways.

**BURNING FAN QUESTION: Have you noticed what's starting to change in Seiko? **/not related at all to the Arachnaeus...that settles in later...this is something completely different/ I've been trying to portray it in every other time I've written her P.O.V. **Tell me what you're thinkin'. ;D**

******...this book isn't going to end for a REAALLY LONG TIME. I'm anticipating maybe chapters into the 60s? ***fuufuu*

* * *

**And, as an official WELCOME BACK, I want to tell you guys as I _always _say, but this time I'm going to *slightly* mix it up a bit...**

**GO HAVE AN AWESOME DAY/NIGHT, AND I LOVE ALL OF YOU! THANK YOU FOR BEING SO KIND, AND YOU ARE ALWAYS IN MY THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS! THANK YOU!**

**Love, Kairi & Ru, my dearly beloved**


	42. Chapter 42

**CHAPTER FORTY-TWO:  
**The Mountain of a Million Steps

With Rikku thrown over Cole's shoulder as though he weighed no more than a loaf of bread, Zane meandered closely to his brother's captive, trying to make sure there was security in his position. It was not that he didn't trust Cole, marching proudly up the Mountain of a Million Steps, to keep his brother in a safe grip. If anything, he trusted Cole more than himself, knowing grandly of Cole's ability to stay loyal to those he loved. It was just that…well…Zane would worry anyway of his brother's unconscious robotic-ness that made him want to throw up. He wasn't _ashamed _that his brother was a robot. Just effortlessly stunned into the depths of corridors unnamed. He hung his head and scampered closer to the mysterious Sensei Wu, his staff helping his transportation upwards this fine mountain. Lloyd, Kai, Nya, and Jay also surrounded him. Interests peaked in the old man's whereabouts.

Zane was confident in this Wu man. He did not understand why, but it must've derived from this strange ability Zane acquired. His trust was utmost at its whole when he determined whether or not Wu was a sacred man. Zane did not have the proper memories he should've from meeting this man before (Sensei had mentioned previously before they'd started up the million-step-journey that Zane was one of his many students) so he was at a disadvantage. However, he knew this man was his friend. That was enough for Zane to go on and enjoy his presence. He liked having friends.

"Sensei," Kai said, gesturing to the magnificent castle that Zane knew they'd be staying in. He was excited to see the inside; it was rather large, like the churches he had seen in the encyclopedia that Ed-nah had given him to research through. Excitedly, he inhaled the beauteous construction. It was made of dark brick, a completed castle where a prince or princess might reside. _Was _there a royal family inside? He wondered. What if there was? Oh, that would be _so much fun! _He'd never met a real prince or princess before. Was there a King and Queen too? "Why is the monastery so…big?"

Sensei Wu chuckled. "The Clockwork Army wanted to build a place that would have a spot for every_one _and every_thing." _

"I would think there's _ample _amounts of space in there," said Kai, awed. "What exactly are they trying to _fit?" _

"It comes with many bedrooms, as well as a headquarters, inside training station in case it's raining outside, technology rooms, studios, meeting rooms, six kitchens, multiple bathrooms, living areas, public showering, robot repair centers, workshops—"

"Jeezus," Lloyd gasped, wowed by the many things this Clockwork Army had built for the monastery. Zane clapped. He was especially excited by the _workshops _portion of Wu's list. He liked to tinker with things. Ed had taught Zane and Jay how to fix broken machinery, which he found he had a passionate talent for. Tinkering was what Zane figured he did best! "Why do they need all those things?"

"There are a lot of robots in there," said Wu softly. His staff clapped against the stone steps underneath their feet. They were not even halfway up, but Zane wasn't tired. If he were not leaving his friends behind, he would've already scampered to the top, yet leaving them in the dust would've been rude of him.

"Muuhmuhh?" mumbled Nya. She groped the skin of Lloyd's arm, something Zane sensed he wasn't comfortable with. He did not see why; they loved each other, did they not? "Muuhhhhhhbtts."

Jay's nose twitched from beside Zane. "_Ro_-bots."

Nya looked towards him, born of innocence and determination. Her nose twitched similarly to Jay's; Zane supposed she was mimicking him to learn. Ed-nah said babies mimicked their parents to learn, too. "_Whoa_butts."

Jay sighed and pressed his face into his palm. "Close enough."

"Sensei, I'm so glad you're here," Kai said, ignoring the other two. "We really need you."

"I can see that." Sensei smirked, looking at Jay and Nya, who were trying to properly pronounce the term "robot." She had let go of Lloyd to wander towards the blue-clad redhead. He sensed Jay's heartbeat stumble over itself when she hung onto him instead. _Does Jay like Nya? _He wondered, observing the change in pulse for a sullen moment. He had only ever heard the quickening of a heartbeat in such an irregular pattern two times in his life: When Misako had seen Damon stepping into her home, and when Lloyd looked at Miss Seiko. It was a strange human anomaly that fascinated him greatly. In fact, human existence in _general _captivated him.

Although that was the case, Zane was rapt by the sounds of the small boy, Bokuyo, from behind him, walking alongside Miss Seiko eagerly. "Mommy, Mommy! I can't wait for you to meet meh frien's!" He said. Zane peered over the slope of his shoulder towards her. She was following them in silent trance beyond their small crusade. Her attention seemed to only half concentrate on her son's commentary. At first, Zane hadn't known that Miss Seiko was a mother. He expected that she was in the same situation as Nya was, only her baby had "come out" from wherever babies came from. To think about the subject of children, Zane did ponder where children actually _did _come from. Did they cut open the mother's stomach to retrieve the child? Did she vomit them?

Zane slowed his pace to wait for Miss Seiko. It was not fair that she was so far behind. She looked into his eyes, surprised. "Hi," he chirped. Bokuyo looked up at him with a bright, animated expression masking his personality.

"Hi!" He responded. "I'm ess-ited for you to meet mah friends!"

"I am equally as fervent," he replied. Bokuyo jumped up the next few stairs with careful grace, the longevity of a child who was carefully trained to master elegant movements. His voice turned into a childlike, off-key song that did not bother Zane's ears. He turned his attention outwards to Miss Seiko. "How are you?" He asked, already knowing the answer. He could already sense it.

The darkness.

He was determined to pull her through, no matter what. Miss Seiko took a deep breath. "Fine. You?"

"I have no complaints." He nudged a rock out of his trajectory path before continuing up the mountain steps. Miss Seiko was much shorter than him, quite the query, if you asked him. He tilted his head questionably. "Miss Seiko? May I ask of why you are so tiny?"

Seiko desperately tried to cover a smile. He did not expect her to reply so calmly to his question—it was aimed more to see whether or not she would negatively answer. He was impressed with her controlled emotions; with the storm of darkness raging within her, he perceived she'd snap angrily at him. Already, Zane was using his people-reading ability to help for the better good. "It's my genetics," she replied. "I'm Asian."

"What is 'Asian'?" he asked.

"Ya know, those who come from _outside _of Ninjago?" She said. Her arm moved in a wide arc. "There's a continent-country thing outside of this one, called Asia. It's made up of a bunch of places. I come from Japan. Or, well, my mom does…My dad is a Ninjean."

"Ah," Zane nodded. _Ninjean _must've meant deriving from Ninjago. He turned to her. "So since you are Cole's sister, that would mean that he has Asian genetics as well, correct?"

Seiko nodded. "Yeah, but he's more into being Ninjean. I'm more Japanese than him." She bent slightly to gently rub her bare thigh, her body arching and slowing so she could properly itch her skin. She straightened and moved faster to catch up with him. "You know, _Katsute nipponjin wa, tsuneni Nippon no."_

"Erm…" Zane rubbed the back of his neck, trying to understand this strange tongue. "I am afraid I do not comprehend what you just said."

Seiko laughed. Zane's brows rose at how beautiful her laugh was; calm, gentle, easygoing. He wondered if he laughed that way. "It means _once Japanese, always Japanese. _Typically I speak that, but I also speak Chinese."

"What is _that?" _

She smiled. "China is in Asia, kinda like Japan. People from China speak Chinese."

Zane struggled to keep up with this. So much new information! "But if you are from Japan, why do you speak Chinese?" He asked.

"Why do I also speak Ninjean?" She countered. Zane felt his face contort into a mask of confusion. He had, admittedly, stepped into that trap. Seiko laughed again, yet again her voice carried gently through the air. It was music to Zane's ears. "Anyone can speak more than one language. It's cool, no laws against it or anything." She shrugged, slipping her small hands into her back pockets. They were halfway up the mountain, to Zane's relief. He did not infer he could walk that much longer. "_Shuāngyǔ," _said Seiko. He looked down at her. "'Bilingual.' I can speak two languages."

"But you speak three."

"True. I prefer Japanese, though." Seiko stepped up another rock, slowing to avoid the dancing Bokuyo. Zane smiled at his acceptable, innocent youth. Seiko looked towards the prize at the top of their climb, where Zane was more than happy to reach. She pointed. "_Kono yama ga ōkii."_

"I…do not understand."

This time, he watched Cole slightly turn to look at her from multiple steps ahead. He grinned. "Shame on you. You're confusing the poor guy!"

Seiko smiled back. "_Watashi wa genjitsu ni kare o sarasu nda!"_

_"Sore wa kōheide wa nai!" _Cole responded. Zane's head whirled. She must've been speaking Japanese, yet he wasn't quick with the fast roll of her tongue. The language sophisticatedly poured from her lips. The sound of her words was pleasing to his ears. He was enthralled by the idea of another language, especially one that sounded so divine! Cole looked at him with a soft smile. "Before that, she said 'this mountain is large.' After that, she said she's trying to expose you to reality. I told her it isn't fair."

"No, it's quite interesting," Zane said quickly. To be honest, he didn't want her to stop speaking this new dialect. He wanted her to only _speak _to him in Japanese, for it captivated him so soundly that Zane didn't want to hear anything else. He looked towards her bright, wide blue eye. "Please, continue. Say whatever comes to mind."

Seiko blinked, pausing. Zane thought perhaps she would not continue when she said, suddenly, "_Watashi wa niji yunikōn ni naritai." _

From above them, Cole snorted. Zane glanced at him, starstruck. His laughter was unable to remain contained, exploding from within his chest. By this time, those walking in front had turned to listen to Seiko speak her brilliant language, themselves incredulous of the way she so thoroughly spoke it. Zane saw Lloyd's face twist into a smile. _Does he understand it? _He thought. Then he sensed Lloyd's heartbeat begin to race when they met gazes. It did not take Seiko long to break the deep eye contact, but Lloyd seemed not to care whether or not she saw him or not; the way his heart pounded made even Zane feel a little drowsy. She looked towards Kai instead.

"What?" Kai asked, brows furrowed. He looked to Zane for guidance, but the other boy just shrugged. He remained as clueless as the others.

"She wants to be a rainbow unicorn," Lloyd translated. Kai looked at her, silly.

"I didn't think you were the type of girl who liked that stuff," Kai said.

"I'm not," Seiko responded, calm and defiant. "I hate sissy sh—I mean, stuff. But he wanted me to say whatever came to mind, so that's what I thought."

Zane chuckled. Yes, he understood now. Of course he should've seen that one coming, yet he was not that observant at the moment. Bokuyo turned to his mother. _"Bokuyo mo niji yunikōn ni narimasu_!" He grinned. Of course, Zane figured, her son would be fluent in the same language.

"He just said he'll be a rainbow unicorn too," Lloyd translated once more. Was Lloyd Asian too? How did he understand this? Maybe Seiko had taught him how to speak Japanese. Would she teach Zane, too?

The crusade in front of them had paused for the other three (Bokuyo, Zane, and Seiko) to catch up. Sorely, they were falling behind. Zane slipped his hands through his hair, once, out of habit. This trek was _long! _A million steps sure felt like more than just that! As if mocking Zane's thoughts, Bokuyo stopped in front of Seiko and held up his arms. "I'm tired, Mommy. Carry me!" Zane was surprised when she held up her hands in rejection.

"You're heavy! No way!"

The little boy's face fell. Zane opened his mouth, sensing the disappointment in him, when from in front of them, Kai yanked his hands out of his pockets. "C'mere, kid," he said, holding out his hands. Bokuyo whirled with a smile as big as the moon on his round face. "I'll carry you."

"Wheeee!" Bokuyo jumped into Kai's arms. Kai almost fell backwards with the force of the young boy's leap. _What a strong child! _Zane admired. Kai's eyes widened for a brief moment before returning to normal, catching his previous footing on the staircase. Zane caught Lloyd watching with a strange expression on his face. One almost as if he didn't want Kai to carry Bokuyo. But why? "Thanks, Mister Kai!"

"You can just call me Kai, you know," said the fire ninja. He smiled at the young boy. Zane observed the way the child beamed. "I don't mind. Man, you're light. Do you think you can climb on my shoulders?"

Zane didn't know how it happened, but the little boy, moments later, was sitting on the strong shoulder line of Kai. Bokuyo clapped his hands. The giggle that followed made everyone smile, because he was daintily attractive. He descried how Seiko's face softened gently, then quickly hardened, while watching her son. Kai marched up the stairs. "C'mon. What're we waiting for? Let's get to the monastery!"

He looked down at Seiko, following closely behind the others. "He is quite adorable. Do you love your son?" He asked softly.

Zane was obsequious. He preferred to abide in the human mind, he found, and how humans reacted to certain situations. However, it appeared that Seiko was an ironic person of immense quality. Her face hardened deeper into a thick, plastic shell. The backlash she dispensed was unlike what another mother may have acted like. Darkness seeped into Zane's senses, so thick that he found it difficult to breathe again. It was tar smeared in his lungs. He could not drench it. Her voice flatly returned, "He's not mine."

Conversation then ceased. She didn't speak to Zane again.

**… ... ...**

It was a long expedition, but they finally made it. Zane paused in front of the large, bigger-than-life wooden gates before him. The last step had been finally cleared. They were done clambering, tripping, practically dying trying to reach the top, sweaty and exhausted, but alive. _Finally. _It was an honor well-deserved by the nine of them. Connected to the stone wall wrapped around the monastery, the wide door remained shut. Sealed, ostensibly, without opening. Was anyone home?

Zane stood beside Seiko, although she refused to accept polite conversation, or anything, for that matter. Bokuyo still raised himself high onto Kai's shoulders. Zane had observed Kai's relaxed attitude around the child. It was quite interesting to see the interaction. Nya had participated herself in holding onto Jay now, her arm latched around his; Jay's hands lazily rested within the nest of his pockets, winded, but with the rapid heartbeat that Zane was becoming familiar with. She was depleted of energy. Carrying around that heavy stomach of hers, Zane did not blame her. Jay's hand escaped his pocket and he ran a it gently over her shoulder. "You okay?" he asked. Nya nodded. Her bangs were glued to her forehead by sweat. She did not look well.

"F-ine." She smiled to let him know she was okay. Jay rubbed her shoulder one more time before stepping up next to Sensei. The old man stood in front of the door. One arm pinned behind his back, the other clutching the staff, he kept his head tilted back to look at the revolutionary extent of the doorway. Zane kept an eye on Nya out the corner of his eye. She kept her hands around her stomach at all times and moved towards Lloyd instead. _She will be okay, _Zane concluded happily. All she needed was water.

"Do we gotta knock, or…?" Jay looked at Wu. The old man didn't look at him.

"No. We wait."

"WHAT?! WAIT?!" Jay wheezed. He was unwilling to accept—to admit—that to be offered as true. "You're kidding! Nya's half-dead; we gotta get her somewhere cool!" Nya's fine cheeks turned rosy.

Wu turned, hushed. He looked Jay composedly in the eyes. "No, Jay. We wait for those on the other side to open the—"

There was a creak, then the sound of some object unlatching. Zane turned his gaze to the large door. A series of clings, whirs, and moaning came from the inanimate threshold until, with a loud, solid _bang, _it began to slide open, inwards. Zane weighed the reaction of the others as opportunity's door moved slowly. Kai held tightly onto Bokuyo's ankles so the fidgety boy wouldn't fall from his shoulders. He met eyes with Zane. The look in his eyes was still. Everything in his face said _this is the beginning of our journey. This is where we will go, and there's no turning back. _As if to respond, Zane nodded, once. Kai took a deep breath, and said, measuredly, "Here we go…"

* * *

**Note: **That last part after the "..." is where the **Yin & Yang theme **from the official Youtube channel would've been used. ^-^

Anyway. Yay! Finally! Entering the monastery! Writing the next chapter now, called "THE SHINOBI"

GAHHH!** Go have an AWESOME day/night, and I'll see you right back here next time!**

**~Kairi & Ru (Who says hello :D)**


	43. Chapter 43

**/Deviantart has been updated! Please go check it out:)**

* * *

**CHAPTER FORTY-THREE:  
**The _Shinobi_

"I'M HOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" screamed Bokuyo. Without another word, the little boy transformed himself into an inky crow, a creature tearing quickly into the sky. He soared through the slim crack the door had made quicker than Zane could process it. How extraordinary…a child, transforming into a bird! He'd never seen anything like it before! Admiring from afar, Zane wondered how such a phenomenon could be performed. He had seen rather strange things today, but this added perfectly to the top of the list—oh, my. Zane took a deep breath as the door fully expanded itself to its fullest content. _"Here we go," _Kai had said.

Oh, yes, indeed. Their journey had just begun.

Zane looked at the black-haired Kai. His eyes were far too wide. He took to blinking rapidly. "Did anyone else see that?" He asked. "That kid practically took off my head by turning that quickly."

"Yeah, into a BIRD! DID YOU SEE THAT?!" exclaimed Jay. He waved his arms over his head. "DID YOU SEE THAT!"

"Yeah," Cole responded. He moved lithely forward. That was when Zane remembered that he was carrying a hundred pounds of brother over his shoulder like a saint. The vampire started to walk past the stationary Sensei Wu. "Let's go. This guy's making my shoulder ache."

Nya shot off like a rocket after Cole's form, disappearing through the threshold immediately. Sensei Wu's entrance was followed by Kai, Jay, and Lloyd alike, leaving Seiko and Zane to be the bane of the finalists. _Marvelous, _Zane thought enthusiastically. The bright withers of the sky's touch poured down in golden rays across his back. This was the time to step inwards to meet what fate he'd be left with for surely a couple months. Zane looked towards Seiko, extending his arm chivalrously. "After you," he said. She gave him a quick smile. _It disappeared perhaps too quickly, _he thought after she'd gone. _What have I said to upset her so? Aside from speaking about her son whom she refuses to accept as such. _

She was sensitive, he gathered. Zane moved past the monastery's tight walls.

In the courtyard, it was much more impressive than staring from the outside. He couldn't suffer more than a gasp of _wow. _It was just as a royal family's home could've been, if not shrunken and modernized. Far taller than _any _building Zane had ever personally witnessed before, with deep green vines creeping up the side of the walls, shingled by flowers and vine. There was an extended porch tacked to the front of the monastery across the courtyard. It covered the entire length of the building, opened by a pair of customary _Shoji _doors at the heart of it. The piazza was large, blank, made of pale white brick with little puckers of grass and weeds rising between the cracks. Well, _almost _empty. There was something he'd never seen before standing in the middle of it, moving in sync with a girl standing afore it. Compared to the automated wonder, she was nothing. A human standing against a robot bigger than any robot Zane could've dreamed of. It was tall, definitely mechanical, and red—marvelously red. It swung large, mechanical fists in tune with the girl's. In boxing motions, the large robot punched the air in what seemed effortless attempts. Zane's jaw dropped. It had no face, but somehow monitored intelligence. _How magnificent! _

"Holy _crap!" _gasped Jay. "What _is _that?"

Zane caught sight of Bokuyo as a crow swerving through the air. He dove downwards towards the girl, who ceased her robot training immediately as not to hit him. Zane couldn't see her face, for only her back faced them. Her hair was light brown, yanked into a messy ponytail behind her head, and she wore what Zane figured was best for a hot workout day: tight leggings and only half a shirt that was missing its lower half and sleeves. She held out her arm to push on a brace connected to her wrist. A _button _on the brace, rather, that did something to the robot. Now, whenever she moved, the robot was free to maneuver on its own without the constraints of her person guiding him. He stepped back, two thunderous rumbles through the ground, so Bokuyo could flutter aimlessly in circles around him. The girl tilted back her head to look into the air, shielding her eyes from the bright sun.

Sensei Wu's attention averted to Nya. She was standing beside Jay again, her mouth dropped wide, with a crystal glitter shimmering in her eyes. Zane noticed her attention was focused on the robot. "Nya?" asked Wu. "Do you recognize that?"

Nya shook her head, mouth still open. Kai moved to her side from a distance apart and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her close. "Nya, that's the Samurai! It's your exosuit! _You_ built him!"

"_Me_?" Nya pointed to herself. Zane was rather impressed. How could she forget such a precious memory? That invention was _outstanding! _His mind immediately tried to diagnose all the ways that robot could function, but in the end he didn't think he understood that much about robots to fully comprehend it. Still, it was truly mind-boggling that Nya had built such a beautiful creature before she'd misplaced her memories!

"There have been a few modifications," said Wu as Nya tentatively reached out her hand, as if to touch the Samurai exosuit that was across the courtyard. "It can operate on its own now without a human manning it. As well as the ability to mimic the movements of those wearing the arm bands."

Nya's expression was awed. Zane loved the sight of the marveling look on her face. Seiko scoffed. "Holy _crap," _she said. "I can't believe you _built _that!"

The crow, in the distance, dove downwards towards the mysterious girl. She held out her arms at the exact moment that Bokuyo transformed, midair, to plummet out of the sky. Zane felt his heart leap into his throat—_he'll die! _How could he do such a careless thing?! Now it was _he _who was reaching out to touch something so far away.

The girl jumped into the air and caught him. They landed lightly on their feet beside the Samurai's foot. It shifted positions to avoid stepping on them, but bent as if to look at the two. _Amazing, _Zane thought. _It's so…intelligent! _

"Hi, Koemi!" cried Bokuyo when she set him down. The girl put her hands on her hips and smiled.

"Hello to you," said the girl cheerfully. "Where've you been? Daijiro's been worried sick about you. Did you know he threatened to kill your cat if you didn't come back?"

"NO!" squealed the little boy in shock. He looked like he was going to cry. "Not my kitty!"

"Well, you better not run off next time after a mission!" scolded Koemi gently. It did not sound like he was being reprimanded at all, but more like she was talking to him in a normal conversation. _Very laid back, _Zane noted. "Maru stopped him, but I can't be so sure he'll _listen _next time." She flipped an extra strand of her light hair from her eyes. Zane still hadn't fully seen the extent of her face yet. She was still facing opposite him. "Now, where _were _you, anyway?"

"Seeing Mommy!" Bokuyo pointed behind Koemi towards the gang of nine standing in the courtyard. Er, eight. Wu was starting to walk towards them, leaving the others awkward and unsure of what to do. Koemi turned around.

Zane felt the breath get knocked out of him. She was young. Younger than _him, _and Zane had a young face. Maybe thirteen, fourteen at the most, but tween-ish nonetheless. A black headband was wrapped around her forehead like a sweatband used by the joggers Zane regularly counted in the mornings at Misako's house. Her fresh, clean face was welcoming and cheerful as she waved towards them. Or maybe towards Sensei. He couldn't tell. "Hiya!" she said. Her smile was warming.

"Oh, _glob_," Seiko moaned. Lloyd turned his hips to look at her, as did everyone else. "She's a total Cupcake."

"_What_?" Jay asked, frowning.

"You know, a Sugarcake. A rainbows-n-butterflies chick. Happy-go-lucky Stockbroker. A 'glass is half full' Marmalade Drinker. A _Cupcake. _She's probably got _My Little Pony _stickered all over her walls._" _Seiko jammed the heels of her hands into her sea blue eyes. "She's a Cupcake. I'm gonna throw up."

"You _were _the one who said you wanted to be a rainbow unicorn," Zane reminded her. Kai laughed.

"Don't you like nice people?" Kai asked.

"There's nice people," Seiko said nervously. Zane could sense she got more and more uncomfortable by the growing second, "and then there's over-the-top, cheerful-and-a-bag-of-chips people. She's one of _those." _A shudder distorted Seiko's five-foot body.

"C'mon," Cole waved his hand dismissively. He set down Rikku so that Zane's brother was standing erectly, sleeping, on the brick court. "Live a little! Cupcakes aren't _so _bad."

Zane sensed her brother trying to cheer her up. He smiled, assuming his own turn. "Yes. They are actually quite delicious. Unless they are the store-bought kind with the green frosting. Then they taste rather undesirable."

The group erupted at his honesty. Laughter moved in coils through the heated air around Zane's body, enveloping him in the love of his friends and closest comrades. He joined in, thankful for these people. He did not know how he would function without them.

… …. … … … .. … … … … … …. …. … … … … …

_**...Da end! XD**  
_


	44. Chapter 44

**IMPORTANT NOTE:**

**So this chapter is actually a rewrite of Seiko's portion of the last chapter. I felt it went horrid last time and I couldnt live with myself if I let the last part of the last chapter live, so I erased it and rewrote it here. it's completely different this time, so please do read. Thanks!**

* * *

**CHAPTER FORTY-THREE:  
**To Be Alive is to be Dead

_~Yin~_

I most likely would never admit it, but I liked Zane. Brutally honest, completely innocent, and all that stuff. He was everything I was not, and, hey, he was funny without trying to be. I could see the love for his friends on his face, something I had never given out before. He never tried to purposely hurt anyone, and, actually, that was kinda nice. I watched his childish face grow with the encouraging laughter of those around him. Proudly including myself.

"Students! Come!" snapped that Wu dude from afar. Everyone listened to him immediately. He had to be really respected to have everyone just _move _like that. It took me a moment to respond. I mean, yeah, all them were his _students _and stuff, but wow. I slowly loped into motion after them, all running to meet their Sensei, but he wasn't _my _Sensei. He wasn't referring to _me _now was he? I shuffled over there, taking my time to admire the giant robot thing that Nya had made. I mean, _wow. _Holy crap. That thing was a frickin dinosaur!

"MOMMY!" yowled Bokuyo's light voice. I winced. I really wished he'd stop calling me that. Not that I didn't like it…because I did. But I wasn't his mother. How would I tell him that? Just the thought of it made my stomach turn. "MOMMY! 'Dis is Koemi!" The little kid booked it towards me, grabbing my hand and _yanking _me with massive force over to the young girl he was talking to. She looked like she was younger than _me._Thirteen? Twelve? Jeez. She had chocolate brown eyes to match her light brown hair. A definite Cupcake. The friendly look on her face was completely like the frosting Zane had been describing earlier. A total CUPCAKE. It's impossible to avoid those kind of people; they seem to flock wherever _I _go, and it's freaking scary. Being completely overtaken by Cupcake people was horrifying. All cheery and happy and crap. Glob. Thinking about it is just…MURDER. "She's a _kunoichi, _like me kinda, but a girl _Shinobi, _but I'm a boy _Shinobi_ so I'm called a _Shinobi_." He clapped his hands. "But now my mommy and my frien' finally get tah meet, an' I'm really happy!" He waved his arms. Koemi turned a fantastic frosting smile at me. _I can taste the store-bought cupcakes already, _I thought in disgust. She held out her hand to be shaken. After a second, I took it, mostly because Bokuyo was staring at us like if we didn't shake hands, the world would crumble into dust.

"So _you're _Bokuyo's mom!" She witnessed merrily.

"Gee, what gave it away?" I said sarcastically. "Was it the endless shouts of 'Mommy' or am I wearing my _mother_ T-shirt today?"

Koemi didn't laugh, and I didn't expect her to. "You're pretty young to be a mom," she said. I put my hands on my hips.

"How old are you again?" I countered, tipping my head to the side. No matter what I did, that creepy-happy Cupcake smile never vanished. Bokuyo danced around her in annoying circles while she rocked back on her heels.

"A _kunoichi _never tells her true age to strangers," she said slowly. "But since you're Sensei's students anyway, I might as well make the point that I'm thirteen."

_Blech. _Just waddling out of her _tween _stages. What a Cupcake. She was definitely a fan of multiple boy bands, unicorns, butterflies, flowers, and the color pink. I turned my back on her to make gagging motions at Cole. His thick eyebrows furrowed sternly. _Yeah, yeah, _I rolled my eyes. Of course I'd be the only one to think she wasn't that cool of a person.

"So you're the Koemi that Sensei was talking about," said the voice of Kai, whom I felt myself eloquently drawn to at the slight _roll _of his R's and annunciation of his K's. Little Miss Cupcake Queen turned to him, her attention averted. Kai stepped out of the line the Ninja had made alongside each other—a brigade, strongheld and unable to be torn, no matter what—to hold out his hand. Koemi gladly took it in hers and tipped her chin back to look up at him. "You must be some _kunoichi _to be praised by this old deity." Kai threw a particular look over his shoulder with that secret smile that obviously referenced their past together. Wu blinked once to show that he'd heard. No reaction, really. He must've been the master of a Poker Face. "I'm Kai."

Koemi smiled and let go of his hand. "So I see you _did _change your appearance. Well done! I sure as heck don't recognize you. Don't worry; you're safe here. This place is off-the-rails with guarding and GPS-deflection systems. Anyway, I've heard likewise about all of you!" she said, stepping back. "At some point, I thought maybe perhaps Sensei was in love with all of you, with the way he constantly talks about you guys." She giggled, twisting her ankle and pressing the tip of her sneaker against the stones underneath our feet. It was a classic _I'm so adorable _motion that made me glare at Cole. _CUP-CAKE! _I mouthed. He ignored me. "Although I'm not bothered by that, of course. He obviously is emotionally attached to you." Koemi clasped her hands behind her back and fell forward in a respective half-bow. "It's quite the pleasure to meet you all. I'm excited to see what the future holds for our journey."

"As am I!" Zane trotted forward. He mimed her half-bow. "I am quite pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Koemi."

Koemi giggled again. "It's really cool to actually meet you guys," she said, and shook his hand. "I read about you in the paper all the time. I never actually thought I would get the chance to actually MEET you all!"

I rolled my eyes. "Oh jeez. Don't tell me you're a fangirl."

Koemi looked innocently towards me, doing that toe-twist thing again. I refrained from gagging. "Who isn't?" She asked, and smiled again. Her teeth were small and I noticed her left canine tooth was crooked. A thin metal bar dragged across her teeth, a definite sign of a retainer. "The Ninja are so cool! I mean, me and all my friends back at home used to have serious debates about which of you was the coolest."

My eyes could've popped out of my head. What the hell?! She was a Ninja-sympathizing-fangirl. Scratch the _boy band _part of my last statement and insert the phrase "Ninja fanart/posters/names with hearts drawn around them." This was awful already. I saw Jay leap forward towards her, poising his hands on his hips and standing a little taller. No doubt trying to make himself look more manly. A failure, of course. "Really? Who's your favorite?" he asked. He hung his elbow over Kai's shoulder.

_I swear, if she ankle-twists one more time, I'm ripping off her shoe and beating her over the head with it, _I thought when she repeated the motion. She ducked her head as a thin coat of blush ran across her freckled cheeks. "Wellllllll, I was, ah, I was always a fan of Cole's," she admitted sheepishly. Jay's face flattened into an _are you kidding _expression. I snorted and laughed at her in the same period of time. Well, well, if the Cupcake wasn't a fan of Sparkles! How come I didn't feel shocked? More rather, I felt a little irritated. Not that it's my business to go about being angry because fangirls adored my brother (there were probably more than just the sugar-coated Cupcake standing before me) but I thought it was stupid. I don't fangirl relentlessly over a bunch of guys running around kicking the butts of snakes and skeletons. It just doesn't happen. Yet somehow, here I stood, with a Cupcake who had definitely added sprinkles and heaps more of green frosting to her personality. I meet jeez. "But, um, when the Green Ninja came, I sorta started to like him a little bit more…"

I bit my lips together to refrain from laughter. Oh, man. This was just getting better by the growing seconds, wasn't it?

Cole playfully shoved Lloyd's shoulder from beyond me, an affectionate expression on his face. "Aw, man, you stole my thunder!" He joked, cool in the company of a fan. Lloyd laughed, but I could see the slick start behind his eyes. Apparently, Snickers wasn't anticipating that one. It matched the way his cheeks turned rosy.

"Sorry, bro," Lloyd shrugged, holding up his hands in a _don't shoot _gesture. His face turned to laughter along with Cole's own. "I'm just too cool for you, dude."

"Don't turn into Kai's egotistical mirror image," Cole warned. "We already have a Kai. We do not need another one!" To see the looks on their faces—the notion of comfort, the ease around each other, the tight _bond _that they all developed with one another—made an epiphany rise inside of me. They were all, despite everything, still friends, deep down. They were all _connected _by bonds so great that no one could ever tear it apart. I could see by the way they all were smiling, laughing at each other. It wasn't your typical joke-laugh-hahaha type. It was your joke-laugh-because-we're-brothers-and-I-frickin-lo ve-you-guys type. They _loved _being around each other. And no one would ever tear that apart.

My hand slid over my mouth. My mind was blown. How could human beings so close to me, within only a few feet away, develop such tight bonds, be so close, when none of them were touching? I had never had that kind of bond with anyone. I was not aware of how blissful it must've felt. But I _wanted _to know, with every fiber of my being. Maybe I could meet a friend one day, develop that peanut-butter-jelly with them. I wouldn't find it with the Cupcake, but maybe I'd find it one day once I was done dealing with these guys. The Ninja, I mean. When my freedom actually lived true to the word. When I actually _got _to leave and see the world for what it was. Hell, maybe one day I could go to Japan and see where my mother had lived, experience the true beauty of _living. _And maybe, upon going, I could meet a friend. A friend who I could have this relationship with. My hands clasped together at my chest, hoping like a dinky little Cupcake. Praying that maybe one day I could experience what they were. I would hold out for that person. My friend. The friend I hadn't even met yet.

I looked at my brother's smiling face. I realized something again. I was becoming a beacon for understanding today. _Even though I was gone—even though our mother is dead—even though Cole's a vampire and has to kill to survive—even though Dad treated him badly—even though I was in an asylum—he has the ability to be HAPPY. The whole time I was locked away, depressed out of my damn mind, trying to figure out why they didn't just kill me already, he was out here, living. TRULY living. Understanding the world better than anyone. Seeing it all, falling in love, meeting these people and becoming HAPPY. He was out here and had the ability to BE HAPPY even though the odds aren't in his favor. He was out here, making friends. Being a HUMAN BEING. He isn't as emotionally scarred as I am. He's not capable of understanding me because while I've been locked away, dying inside, he never once felt the grief of misfortune. He looked at his cup as being full enough, and ran with that. He doesn't NEED anything I think I need to be happy. He doesn't need a mom, or a dad, or a sister, or a home. He just needs his friends. His brothers. He was out here, and my return didn't affect him at all, simply because Cole doesn't NEED me. That's why he never told anyone about his dancing history, or—or ME. It isn't because he's ASHAMED of these things, of me—it's because he's happy the way he is, and he didn't need to say anything about us to _be_ happy. Oh, my god. Cole. _My head snapped towards him, my hand clapped over my mouth. The sunlight glinted beautifully across his face, and his smile lit up the sky. My brother is ALIVE. He's ALIVE, and he's _happy _to be alive.

And so am I. I'm just not _living._ But I need to start, or I'll die a miserable, miserable fucking person. I need to be ALIVE.

"I'll change your mind," Cole said competitively, turning to Koemi. He gave her an accentuated wink to make her face turn redder than the chain around Kai's neck. The fire ninja turned to him and gave him a sly look from the corner of his golden eye. With my hand over my mouth, my heart thundered in my ears. I was not ALIVE. I was not stressing those five capital letters. But I NEEDED to.

I felt eyes on me. When I looked for the source, I found Wu's stark blue gaze riveted to mine, watching as if he were reading my thoughts across my face. Somehow, I felt like he understood everything by just touching me with his eyes. Like he knew exactly how I felt. Like at some point in his life, he was lost, too, and needed help finding his way back. Did he understand? My hand fell away from my face, a plead. A call for help, against my own grudges. I wanted help. I wanted to be like Cole, too. I wanted to be… ALIVE.

Not really the greatest time to find my meaning in life, but whatever. Like he understood, Sensei Wu nodded slowly. I felt like something in my chest was knotted, and by that nod it was released, held captive long before it was given the _okay _to leave. My clenching heart loosened a fraction. Wu nodded again. The continuation of the Ninja's conversation escalated in the distance behind my hearing. I wasn't listening. I was paying attention to Wu's slow nodding, his urging. _Let go, _his eyes said. _It's okay to let go. We will catch you as you fall. _Tears pronged the edges of my eyes—stinging, the likes. I hated crying, but I let the tears slowly build. I wouldn't let them go. Instead, what I was letting go inside of me was this ball, letting the black ties unravel, the chains unclasp. The release of mind and borne of reality was startlingly familiar, as though I was seeing the world in reality again. Similarly like the time when I regained my sight in the Underworld—everything was fresh, anew. Alive, sparkling and glowing with the truth. The sun was bright—the clouds were three-dimensional—the giant red robot standing above me was reaching out to prod Nya's shoulder with a thick golden finger—the wind was cool against my face, so forcibly so that it moved my hair—I was _seeing _again. Understanding. Wu smiled at me, and I felt my knees shake. This was REAL. How had he done this? Changed my opinion so quickly? Changed me in an instant—at a weird time, at that? How had he given me insight with a SMILE?

I trembled. He was weird. But that's okay.

Sensei Wu nodded again. _There she is, _said something deep within me. _A girl who should be herself. _I felt cold, but not cold with the aloneness I had before. I was cold…because of the _wind. _I hadn't even felt it before. But now I could feel it kissing my skin, rubbing across my cheeks, burning my fingertips. I noticed the way Jay drug his hood up, the way Cole dug his hands into his pockets, how Lloyd wrapped his arms around himself, and Kai pulled his shoulders to his ears. Zane seemed rather unaffected, as did Koemi, but Bokuyo came running towards me. I felt the way his tiny hand touched the skin of my leg. I felt the scratch of his fingertips. "Cold," he complained, and held up his arms. My heart squeezed. I took a deep breath. The chains around my heart loosened a little more.

"Come here," I said, and lifted him into my hold. I embraced the way his hands curled into my hair, how his legs wrapped around my waist, how the world seemed to actually BE AROUND ME, and I actually seemed to be IN it for once. Never before have I felt to be a member of the world, but for this subtle, immortalized moment, I _was. _I am. I am _being, _and that is enough to keep me alive.

I met Wu's eyes. He smiled. He'd seen, and as always, understood. I nodded in thanks to him. This moment most likely would never last forever—eventually, the way I could feel every single thud of my heartbeat hitting my ribcage would dim into a forgotten rhythm—but for now I'd keep it in cement.

"Man. Did you build this?" asked Jay. I heard the octaves of his voice almost immorally, and returned my gaze to him. He stood beside Nya, completely taken by the sight of the giant robot. Nya giggled relentlessly as it poked her. It reached over with its other hand to poke Jay. "This is SO COOL!"

"Ah, no, not me," Koemi said, waving her hands emptily. She laughed. "I was only reprogramming its intelligence system. Before that, it couldn't function without a command, but now that I've manipulated It a little, it can do things all on its own now. Like so. It also is able to, when one is wearing _these"_—she held up her wrists to show two matching golden wristbands on either arm, both with huge red gems in the middle—"mime your movements. Great for combat."

"WOW! That's SO COOL!" Jay laughed as the robot held out its hand for Nya to touch. Her hands ran over it. To me, it looked like she was in love with it, completely indescribable in the awe on her face. She was happy to see it. It seemed equally as content, interacting with her while gently reaching out a rounded, large finger about the size of Cole to gently rub her stomach. Nya wrapped her arm around the finger in a hug. For response, the robot lifted her into the air in its palm. I must've been missing something—did they know each other…?

Kai put his hands on his hips and grinned. "Nya built that," he said. I was amazed. _Nya built that? _I thought, wondering how much blood and sweat went into that one. She had to be pretty intelligent to be able to do THIS, which by the looks of it she didn't exactly excel in at the moment.

Jay whirled. "NYA DID?! _That _NYA?" He pointed to the pregnant young girl, laughing blissfully as she played with the robot. She ignored everyone else.

"Yeah," Kai said, like that WASN'T a big deal. He shrugged. "It's the Samurai. You two used to build stuff like this all the time." He cracked his knuckles.

I watched Zane and Jay marvel at the mechanical amazingness of a giant robot, supposedly named the Samurai. Cole, Lloyd, and Kai hung back behind them and watched the childish three run around like kids in a candy store. Koemi readjusted the legs of her shorts. Wu ran his hands over his staff. And Bokuyo? He squirmed like a fish out of water in my arms. "Put me down!" he said, and when I acted in accordance with his tiny command, he ran over to Koemi. She looked down at him. "Koko-sama," he held up his arms. She pulled him into her own grasp. "Where's Daijiro-sama?" He asked, patting her shoulders like a child. She smiled.

"He and Maru went to go check out the wormhole in Ignacia," she said, thumbing Bokuyo's cheek. I tried not to let myself grind my teeth, but the attempt was sore. I blatantly fed the demon of jealousy. I could feel the need to sock her in the jaw rising inside of me, despite my previous "reality check." The chains around my heart tightened a little. _No, _I thought, but it was pointless.

Kai turned. His eyebrows furrowed. "Wormhole?" he asked, concerned.

Koemi turned to him, Bokuyo still encased against her. "Yeah." She leaned back to even out the little boy's weight. "There was a certain incident with some Bizarro yesterday during the Moon Festival. By the looks of it, they used bottles of Traveler's Tea and poured it into the ground. Seems to me like they were trying to open it up and create a super-portal or something, but it went wrong—or maybe that was their plan. It completely opened a huge wormhole that dug an endless hole in the ground, much like the one at the Ninjago City museum. Which is something we wanted to speak to you about, Sensei." Koemi turned to Wu, concern warping her face. Kai himself, once I laid eyes on him, appeared to be mortified. "We've been tracking the wormhole using some of the GPS-pointer equipment that we directed on Ignacia. Sensei, the wormhole is _growing. _It's expanding endlessly, and the authorities who're surrounding it have lost multiple parked vehicles into it because they left them there and came back to find the wormhole bigger than the last time. It looks as though its purpose is to completely SWALLOW Ignacia. By diagnostics, we determined it grew four inches every fifteen minutes. The square where the Moon Festival took place is completely _gone_."

"Wait," Kai held out his hand, pausing the statistics. I stepped closer. "You're saying that Ignacia is being completely _obliterated _by a growing wormhole?" I could not describe the horror on his face, the way he looked heartbroken and perplexed in chorus. I felt bad for him immediately. To be honest, though this might sound a little funky, I didn't want him to look so pained. Like someone shot him in the heart. I reached out a hand, but before it could leave an inch past my side, Lloyd had already clapped a hand on his shoulder. Jay and Zane came to him. It was then that my hand clenched at my side, falling away, as did my position; I moved backwards so Cole could fit into the squeeze. The chains around my heart locked further. _He has support. _The strange, unidentified anomaly that spoke to me within my own brain arose again. _He has support from his loved once. And what have you? A voice in your head that you don't recognize? _

_I can't be so dark, _I thought, but it didn't help again, either. I didn't want myself to fade back into the darkness like this, but struggling I couldn't face the weight of reality against me. It WAS reality. If I was going to accept reality—_the reality is that you have nothing, _spat the voice. I flinched. _Do not try to wade in the light. All you be is a fake. _

_Fake, _snarled a new voice that I DID recognize. It almost sounded like mine, but it was too low to be my own. _Maya. _

_Don't you listen to her. Don't let her get to you. _Lloyd's voice, relaxing and heartening, smoothed through my mind like ripples against water. I clasped my hands together to force the trembling to appear nonexistent. _How can I fight her off when all I am is just her chew toy? _I thought, feeling the chains around my heart constrict like snakes back into the way they were, my reality check long dissipated. I had taken the challenge Lloyd had given me in ignoring everything Maya said, yet somehow, no matter the situation, I kept reverting back into her ugly commentary. I was failing. Lloyd had said that he believed I could do it—I'd stuck myself up to the challenge, after all, thinking I could own it—but his belief was sapped into someone who couldn't stick up for herself. She lacked the self-confidence she needed to win that challenge. Hell, what could I do but give stupid comments with negativity attached to them? Insult from afar, up-front, whatever. _Admit it, _Maya said in my mind. _You're good for nothing. At least I have a purpose._

_What purpose? _I thought, clenching my fists. A hole was burning painfully in my stomach. It was so hard to breathe.

_At least I can make men happy, _she laughed in my ear. _You—what are you? Nothing?_

"Sensei, I-I need to go, I need to – I need to see what happened, I – Ignacia!" Kai whirled on his clammy teacher, who seemed to be flummoxed by apprehension. I didn't think someone so composed could return to a state of complete and utter fear. Kai put his hands in his hair. "My home—Ignacia is disappearing! Sensei! I need to go back, to _help—"_

"We're looking for ways," said Koemi gently. She reached out her hand just as I had before to place it solely on his shoulder. He accepted it with a crazed gleam in his eye. "At the moment, the best we have is Danielle, but she's not here right now. I don't know how there is a way to stop a wormhole, but we'll get it."

"No! Every second we waste here lets the wormhole grow! I need to go back!" He whirled, but Sensei Wu remained as though he was not bothered by this. He regained the self-control he'd lost and steadily clapped his staff tip against the stones. "Sensei—it's my _home! _Please!"

"Chill, Kai," Lloyd put his hands on his friend's shoulders, redirecting Kai's discomposure onto himself. I watched his eyes widen to try and capture his fretful, twitching brother's gaze. He ducked his head a few times to catch Kai's eye. "It's alright. We'll do something about it. What kind of protectors would we be if we didn't save Ignacia?"

Wu stepped forward. Lloyd released the reigns he had on his sickly friend for the masterful teacher to replace him. "The Clockwork Army is tracking this wormhole, and by my word, we will attempt best we can to eliminate it." _I believe you, _I thought at his words. "It is your home, and I know you care deeply for Ignacia. I promise: We will visit quite soon, my student. However, today is not for leaving. Today is for training."

"Training?" asked Zane.

Wu nodded once, briskly and sharp. "You must train to re-learn Spinjitzu, for you have forgotten. Time is not to waste, my students. There's a war on the horizon, and to be unequipped for battle is unwise."

Lloyd nudged a tiny crumb of rock with the toe of his shoe. He looked a little disturbed, although one can never be too sure; I guess, judging by the way his eyebrows knitted together, the idea of a _war _wasn't fondled gently. I held my hands against my chest again. _Don't look like that, _I thought. _Pick your head up. You look best when you smile. Lift up your head, Snickerdoodles. _Resembling a read of my thoughts, Lloyd lifted his head, looking at his teacher with a thin line of lips stretched over his face. "You mean the Great Battle, don't you?" He kicked the rock at his feet.

"Yes," said the elder man. He rolled his shoulders. "Now, Lloyd, you're failing again. I said no Sad Sylvesters!"I expected the smack of the staff pretty much moments before it smacked Lloyd again. The abuse must've hurt, but maybe they were all used to being slapped around by their teacher. Lloyd swatted away a second blow with his hand.

He rubbed his shoulder's tender new bruise. "It's just kind of stressful to be in this position. Sorry. I'm not trying to sad your Sylvesters or anything."

It seemed that Wu softened at the sound of that. His eyes fell to liquid. Instead of another round of child cruelty, Wu put a solid arm around his student's shoulders. "I will do what I can to make sure that you make it out safely," he promised softly. "You all are my responsibility. It is my duty to train you to the greatest expectancies I can; I can teach you as much Spinjitzu and ninjutsu and combat as I know. We will save Ignacia, and with that we will save Ninjago when we take down these Shadow Dancers for good." Sensei's eyes followed the line of the circle of students that surrounded him: dragging quietly across Zane, Jay, Kai, Cole, Lloyd, Bokuyo and Koemi wrapped in their embrace. I stood behind them, shielded from view to my liking, wondering how long it would take Wu to teach all of those things to his students. There, I remained hidden in the shadow of the Samurai, happy to be there. It seemed like I knew my best in the shadows. Knowing me, that was probably the place I could actually be _real _in. There was no mocking shadow that followed me there; it was just me, myself, and I. I sunk deeper into it, watching them. Feeling like I used to back at Sunnyside when I would sit beside and observe those who lived there. Watch, not touch. I felt my hands curl around themselves—open, then close…open, then close…

Every passing second, they were empty.

…

She would definitely be difficult to train, that was for sure.

Wu sighed. He kept his arm around Lloyd, but his eye on Seiko, hidden where she thought she was unseen. He knew that because she was the Yin—assuming everything he'd been taught to believe thus far was true—she would be bathed in darkness, as her true nature suggested. Knowing that he'd read the scrolls already and had perfectly witnessed how deep the shadows of her heart went, it wouldn't be easy to get Seiko to come out of the black. Any normal person would've disarmed hope. But Wu knew that darkness could always be conquered—said so specifically by the redemption of his own older brother, Damon. No one had thought that Damon would be able to escape his image. Maybe he could recruit his brother in the aide to hopefully win the Yin onto their team. After all, she was a vital pawn in this game. If she fell into the wrong hands or abandoned them for the opposing side, they would surely lose, even _with _Lloyd. She would completely obliterate him with the bat of an eyelash.

Wu needed to work hard in keeping her sane…and happy. He'd seen her trying earlier to become more flexible, to be more positive and happy. For half an instant, the scheme had worked. But the reality of her own identity kept weighing her down.

He needed to see just how far she'd go.

Wu gave Lloyd's shoulder a squeeze. "I believe in you. All of you." He stood taller. Reaching out with his staff, he touched Cole lightly on the shoulder. "Cole, the brave leader. Loyal to his friends, devisor of master plans, and protector of the ones he loves." He moved his staff onto Jay, prodding the young boy's stomach with its tip. "Jay, the skilled inventor. Quick as lightning, witty in comebacks, and creator of multiple sparring bots." Jay looked confused, but Wu didn't care. He touched Zane's arm with his bamboo-made friend. "Zane, seer with sixth sense. Trustworthy to depend on, selfless to others, and the bond that holds you all together." Zane bowed. Wu could've cried at the familiarity of it all. He turned to Kai. "Kai, the determined blacksmith. Devoted to his brothers, a best friend to all, and indomitable in battle." Kai smiled. He murmured a soft thank you that most likely no one else could hear. Wu turned to the end of the line, where Lloyd stood, hands in his sweatshirt pockets. He poked him. "And Lloyd, the Green Ninja and my nephew. Strong under pressure, conqueror of evil, and loving friend."

"Thanks, Sensei," Lloyd whispered. He smiled at him warmly.

Wu tilted back his head. The sunlight marred his vision, but perched atop the Samurai Wu was sure that he saw Nya, intently viewing from above. "I didn't forget you," he said softly. "Nya, beloved sister. Creator of the Samurai, lover with a large heart, and compassionate to others."

Lloyd clasped his arms behind his head. Wu was not expecting him to twist his hips and look backwards, searching in the shadows of the Samurai suit to find her. "Hey, you," he said, a smile breaking out on his face. The small Japanese descendant hidden beyond peeked quietly from behind the shade of her bangs. _I am surprised to see that he acknowledged she is there, _Wu thought in pictures. _His heart is quite large. I already knew that, of course, but to see him being selfless makes me proud. _"Why ya all the way over there?"

Cole turned. He crossed his arms over his chest. Jay rotated to look at Seiko's hidden body. "Whoa, creepy-like! You're all hidden in the shadows…kinda…freaky…" Nervously, Jay rubbed the back of his head and pivoted round to face Wu again. Cole smacked him.

Wu saw his chance. If he was going to test her and see how far she would go, he'd have to act quickly. Lloyd held out a hand. "Come over here," he chuckled. Seiko pointedly wouldn't meet his eyes, but shuffled forward a little. "Don't be shy! We're all friends here, right?" Wu espied. Not usually did he see his nephew open his heart—basically because he hadn't been present lately. Lloyd's hand, outstretched, slid gently onto Seiko's waist as she neared him. It curled around the thin curve of her shirt and moved around her back. Her body shivered.

_Seems like there's something deeper here, _Wu thought. He took a deep breath. He could feel it coming…

…

_~Yin~_

His hand dragged across my back. My whole spine totally felt like it was going to shiver and break with the way I could feel him. But it was wrong to feel that. I mean, he was with Pretty Princess up there.

I sidestepped his hand. I didn't meet his eyes, so I looked at the ground. I really wasn't expecting him to say anything next, but—"And Seiko," he reminded. "A committed fighter and, uh, enthusiastic arguer."

"A 'committed fighter and enthusiastic arguer'?" I repeated. I looked up at him questionably. "What the hell does that mean?"

"You don't back down from a challenge, and you're pretty passionate when you're trying to make your point," he said. He looked a little surprised at my jumpy reaction. He didn't really _need _to introduce me, 'cause I was perfectly capable of doing so myself. I know he'd noticed that Wu had no intention of presenting me in the complimentary ways he'd introduced his precious students. I saw Wu tilt his chin up a little, like he was examining me over the tip of his nose or something. I didn't like the look.

"Not traits to be proud of," the old man said. My jaw popped open. "It can easily lead you to failure and terrible consequences."

"And what are _you, _an outdated fortune cookie?" I lashed out. I saw Lloyd give me a look out the corner of my eye, possibly one telling me not to say anything stupid, but of course I'm an airhead who doesn't listen.

Wu looked unflappable. "Your sharp tongue may _also _lead you in the wrong direction. If you wish to overcome an opponent, you must do it wisely and not from the quick whim of your words, for your senses are sharper than your tongue."

I scowled at him. "You don't know me," I spat. How this turned so sour so quickly was…probably a record on my part. I was just being moody, I guess, but I…I was hurting inside. I usually hurt other people when I feel hurt. Which is 98 percent of the time.

"No, but _I _do," said the groveling voice of Cole from a different part of the half circle the Ninja had made. His arms flashed dangerously. The silver glinted wickedly, a knifeblade in the moonlight. He gave me the murder look when it meant that I needed to shut up. "Knock it off. You're being rude."

I opened my mouth, but I was cut off quickly by a scoff-noise from Wu's throat. A noise that was a short laugh. He was _laughing _at me. "You are still but a child," he said. "You know nothing of anything. Quite immature. _Unfit_ to be a mother."

My fists clenched. Was he testing me on purpose? Because if he said one more damned word I would whirl around and punch him square in the face without giving it a second thought. No one got to talk to _me _like that. He didn't know what he was talking about! I knew _plenty. _I'd seen darkness at its worst consuming my life—oh, that bastard. Who the hell did he think he was? "I know 'nothing of anything'?!" I snapped. Lloyd hissed my name under his breath, but I ignored it. "How about _you _watch _your_ worst nightmares unfold before your eyes, watch _your_ brother get tortured by a vampire, huh? How about _you _go the majority of your life feeling guilty, hated, with no friends or anything, to be thrown away in an asylum by your father who couldn't care less about you? Huh? IF I don't know nothing of anything, then how the hell am I _still alive?" _I snapped. I stepped closer to him. _I'm not going to take this from _you. "I know all I _need _to know, and I don't like your criticism, you old geezer. So I suggest you _watch where you step, _'cause I can tear you down right here and now, Grandpa."

"SEIKO!" I felt a hand grab me, yanking me away from Wu, who was unruffled by my words. _You think you're tougher than shit, don't you? _I thought, baring my teeth. Egotistical bastard! "What the _hell _are you doing?!" Lloyd grabbed my arm roughly, shaking me. I looked into his eyes. _Defensive, _I thought of the anger in his eyes. _He's protecting his uncle._

"He was being _rude!"_

"He's telling you the _truth_," said Kai. I looked at him. He, too, wore a cross guise. I'd offended them all by attacking their Sensei. Huh. _They're all on the geezer's side, _I thought, knowing I was completely wrong anyway, but defensive of myself regardless. It was always me versus the world. You developed that kind of survival strategy to fight back after time. "Sensei only says things to help us become better people."

"I don't want his _help," _I spat, looking at the old man. He blinked without emotion. "I'd rather hang out with a Cupcake."

Wu nodded curiously. Like he was _mmmmhmmm_-ing like therapists did when you told them all your problems. _Mmmhmm, yes, I see, I see. Mmmhmm. _That's exactly what that old man's face said. And it made my temper rise. "I've seen enough," he said. _What? _What did he mean by that? Did he do all of that just to see my reaction?

I opened my mouth, but the snappy response was shorn at the hand that clasped over my face. I was pulled backwards. I struggled against my captor—"Sorry, Sensei," said Cole's voice, dangerously close to my ear. _You idiot, _I thought, falling limp. I was standing there like an idiot with my brother holding down the senseless insults ready to fly out my mouth. "She's a bit abrasive."

"Do not apologize. I wanted to see what could be done." Wu looked at Cole above my head. "To see how far she could be pushed."

"That's pretty far. I wouldn't recommend going the distance, if I were you."

"I do not need recommendations, Cole. Thank you, but I should be fine." Wu stood straighter and clapped his staff on the ground. "Students, COME! My feet are tired. And you must begin training before you can get a tour of the monastery! I will prepare the equipment. Nya, please, if you will, continue getting to know the Samurai. I have a feeling the two of you will be great acquaintances. Koemi and Bokuyo, go check to see the status of the wormhole. Report back to me as soon as you get the information. Ninja, follow me to the Spinjitzu training course. No dallying!" He whirled and began walking. Zane, Jay, and Kai followed quickly behind. But with a long glance at me, Lloyd followed. Cole remained behind.

_Lemme go, _I mumbled against his hand. Instead of acting on that, Cole dropped his lips to my ear, speaking lowly so only I could hear. "Knock it off. One bad move, and I will kick your ass out the door. This is absolutely NOT the time to be moody, and bitchy, and completely awful. I don't need you ruining this for me," he hissed. "You don't like it here? Then _get the hell out."_

* * *

**Burning Fan Question: Cole getting territorial over his home? Is he afraid Seiko will ruin it? If not, what's going on?**

XD Go have an awesome day/night!

~Kairi


	45. Chapter 45

**NOTE: **I'll say it up here because the ending needs to be left on a perfect note. Go have an awesome day/night! Enjoy! ~Kairi

****Note: No idea why it reapeated...the computer was acting funky earlier. I probs should've checked it... But the repeat made it not-so-cute...WAAAAAA DX Oh well. Sorry about that!**

* * *

**CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE:  
**When I'm With You

Needless to say, Jay was like a kid in a candy store when he stepped into the Spinjitzu training course. It completely took Kai's mind off of Ignacia to help babysit his fellow long-term memory loss buddies. Jay leaped into the indoor training course that looked just like the one Kai remembered stepping into after Sensei Wu jacked him from Four Weapons. _Crap, Four Weapons_, he thought, his heart starting to ache. Could he really wait until tomorrow to go see what had happened at home? Or maybe today after assisting with the training these Forget-Me-Yes Spinjitzu Masters, he could beg Sensei to let him go. The thought of Ignacia being devoured by a wormhole made his stomach roll and do a trapeze flip into a pool full of sharks. He walked into the rough-hewn wooden-planked room, edgy and classy with that regular ninja style. One window edged the left wall from the Shoji doors they stepped through, almost completely identical to the windows that the monastery had before. _So far, so good,_ he thought of the remodeling. Kai crossed his arms over his chest. As not to be bowled over by the circles Jay was running around the room, he remained close to the door. "WOWWWWWW would you look at that spinny thingy? WHOAAAAA! There are wooden dudes attached to it!" Jay gasped and prodded one of the spinning dummies with his fist, giving it a lame swing to the stomach. "WOW! Ooo! Look at these!" He ran to the pegs sticking headfirst from the ground, leveled at different intervals. "HOLY CROW! Zane, check it out!" He ran towards the spinning punching-bag holder, which was currently stationary. "It's like the thing Cole beats the crap out of at two in the morning! And—ooh!" He kicked the pegs with the miniature pegs sticking out of them. In return, the chain reaction caused them all to spiral in circles. Jay laughed. "This is so cool! Sensei, will this teach us Spinjitzu?!"

Kai moved his torso to face his teacher with a grin. Seeing Jay and Zane drooling over the course that changed their lives forever made his heart, despite the problems in life, feel warm. Lloyd, on the other side of Sensei, met Kai's eyes. He couldn't help but wink at the little twerp. Maybe things would actually start to make sense after this. Lloyd stuck out his tongue.

"This will teach you Spinjitzu, yes," responded Sensei. He played with the wrinkled excess of his fleshy hand. He turned to the door. "Once you master it, you will also have mastered your element. Now, I must go retrieve something from another room. Stay here, and do not cause issues."

"Element," repeated Zane. From atop the dummy-spinner, he dangled his legs over the side and patted the ceiling. Kai hadn't even seen him crawl up there, but somehow he'd managed to clear all ten feet of equipment. "I do not recall what my element is."

"Ice," Kai parried since Wu was no longer present. "Jay's is lightning. Mine is fire. And Cole's is—wait, where is he?" Kai had noticed before that the hard-edged ninja was missing, but had been too spellbound by his friends to say anything. He'd just leaned off the frame of the door when he heard the soft thud of feet behind him against the worn out wood. He flashed a glance behind his shoulder to find the vampire walking into the room, gently shouldering past Kai with a hand against his bicep.

"Sorry. Was dealing with something."

Jay, too busy kicking the spinning pegs, didn't throw a look, but rather spoke without eye contact. "What kind of something?" Jay nudged the peg again.

"He means a sister something." Zane slid gently down the top of the dummy-spinner, landing gently on his feet without a sound. His face remained expressionless. He met Cole's eyes neatly while the earth ninja flipped his hair out of his eyes. "What exactly were you two discussing?"

Cole did not look bothered. Kai stepped forward a little while he tugged on the ends of his shirt to pull it down a little lower, calibrating the evenness. To be honest, Kai wasn't the least bit interested in what they were talking about, because it seemed like more of a private thing. It was the least of his concerns either way. Jay was oblivious. A typical Jay move. Lloyd, on the other hand, seemed to be listening without looking like he was listening, turned the other way with his ear cocked to pay attention without physically resembling an eavesdropper. Kai saw Zane's eyes narrow. _Whoa_, he thought. _Dangerous._

Cole filled his cheeks with air. His posture screamed chastity. "I was just asking her to be more respectful," he said. His tone rose a bit. "That's all."

"REGARDLESS, DO YOU SEE THIS STUFF?!" The Arcadian scream of Jay came from behind Cole. He downed the four feet between them and punched his brother in the arm within a few seconds. "It's so cool! We get to train on this! Learn some Spinjitzu! Wait, what exactly is Spinjitzu?"

Kai had been waiting for that question. It was intensely sad that his own brothers didn't remember the fighting style that had altered their lives forevermore. Eloquim had profoundly tapped into their souls and ripped the thoughts from them. Luckily, Eloquim no longer existed, but Kai still felt guilty. He'd been the one who could've stopped this and eliminated a helluva lot of sweat and tears. But wasting time on guilt was pointless. After all, what he'd learned from his beloved teacher, if anything, was that the past was the past, and all he could do was improve from the future.

"It's what makes you _you,"_ Kai claimed. He rubbed the back of his head. "It makes you who you are. Even if you don't know how to do it, it's you. Inside of you. Waiting." He spoke completely from the heart. He'd been becoming more in contact with his heart lately, trying to figure out exactly how he felt. He was stumbling out of his teenage-awkwardness and stepping into adulthood, something they could only have laughed at as a group a year before. Kai was growing up. Just like the others.

"Deeeeeeep," rolled Lloyd off the scratchiness of his tongue. Kai gave him a look before collapsing into chuckles. The younger blonde shoved him on the shoulder. "Looks like you've been doing some reading up on poetry. You getting in touch with your feminine side?"

_Oh, Lloyd. You have yet to fail to surprise me,_ thought Kai, ruffling the kid's hair. He laughed. "Only if you're getting in touch with your inner tween girl," he said, and stuck his tongue out the corner of his mouth. _Okay, maybe I'm not growing up too fast,_ he thought, and moved his hand over his hair. Lloyd tilted back his head and laughed. "Get into all those boy bands. What was the one guy called? The little fag with the flippy hair? Wasn't it Dustin Sheaber?" Lloyd rolled his eyes.

"Not happenin'," he said, and looked at Jay. Kai was glad to see Lloyd smile. It made his heart feel warmer than before. "If anyone's gonna like boy bands, it's definitely Jay._ Two Distances_ is definitely your jam, bro."

"Ya, totally my men. No way, _Jose!"_ Jay bumped Cole with his elbow. Laughter jumped in his throat. "I think this homie right here would adore having Clutch Powers in his room for the night."

"Mmmm definitely. It would be the best night of my life.I love guys," Cole groaned. Rolling his eyes, he heeded Zane with a kissy face. "Wassup? You busy later?" Jay burst into laughter. Kai loved this, personally; they were interacting as they would have back before any of this happened, before memory was ever altered and Shadow Dancers were acknowledged. This hadn't happened in a while. No…strings…attached.

"I do not enjoy men as sexual partners," Zane said through a sheen of red covering his cheeks. Oh, jeez, he doesn't think we're joking! Kai realized, and laughed at Zane's irrefutable innocence. He was so oblivious, it was childishly acceptable. "But thank you for your offer."

Laughter filled the room. It was all Kai could hear, entering his heart and exiting through forces so elegant it made waterfalls puke. (_Ha-ha, see what I did there?)_ Jay doubled over with laughter, unable to keep himself up. _Ah, Zane,_ Kai thought, _you're awesome_. Zane didn't seem to understand what was so funny, making the flustered ex-nindroid even more hilarious. Lloyd wrapped an arm around him. "We love you, man," he said.

Kai stopped laughing and sucked in a heavy breath. _We love you, man_. Lloyd had said that same exact thing the day this all had changed—the day Zane had seen a mysterious snake standing in the doorway of the Bounty. He'd wrapped an arm around the droid and claimed that same exact statement. His breath was gone for a moment. _The memories_…

"Do you have an honesty switch or something?" Jay asked in laughter. "I mean, you just don't know how to joke for the life of you! A joke? Remember what we talked about?"

Zane looked ashamed. "Oh, yes. A joke. Ha-ha."

Kai and Cole exchanged a glance. _That happened exactly when I first met those two,_ thought Kai, feeling uncomfortable and fidgety already. _They're reliving something they've already done—is this fate?_ Cole shrugged, as if he'd heard everything Kai had just uttered over for the doubly few seconds, touching the soft windblown course of his jet black hair. He flipped it from his eyes again with the ecstasy that only came with someone who had the ability to sink deep into the adamantine silence of a dead lamb. For some reason the past was being shamelessly relived. Maybe if the boys re-learned Spinjitzu, they'd regain their memories and all this forgetful shit would disappear. Boy, did Kai pray that was true. Spinjitzu had to be the key, right? After all, it was the sole base of the ninja's abilities. Without it, they were…well, this. A bunch of drunken teenage boys high off each other's' attention. They had been that before, but without it…they were making gay jokes. That was just sad.

_Gay. I hate that word_. Kai shook his head. He really didn't like it. It was used in such a negative way that with it came a heavy responsibility of being a gay. Not that Kai was gay—he was just saying, if he were to be gay, it would be very depressing to be called such. People had the right to love who they wanted, didn't they? Did it matter? Did people give cat-lovers their own special nicknames? How about those who adored pistachios? No, so why should it matter if a guy liked a guy? Right?

Jay rolled his eyes. "Hopeless. Hopeless! I put my tears and devotion into teaching you sarcasm and you go on and throw it up all over me!" He hid his face in mock sadness. His theatrical head toss was almost unbearable. "Everything is ruined, I say, ruined!"

"I-I'm sorry," Zane's face turned red again. "I didn't mean to—"

Jay moved out of his crying position. He threw his hands into the air. "SARCASM! A JOKE! GAH!" He flopped onto the wooden floor without another sadistic word, lying on his back to stare at the ceiling in defeat. "I GIVE UP! THOU IST HOPELESS!" Lloyd and Cole laughed, but Kai was still off in his own world. What do you have to think to be considered gay? He wondered, leaning back against the wall again._ Do you have to physically be with a man? Or do you have to have feelings about another man? Or maybe if you sleep with one, would you be considered gay then? Does it require a relationship?_ He looked at his hands, broad and calloused from years of being a blacksmith. The skin was hard, masculine to hold its own, and strong with the grip of iron. If he thought back hard enough, he could remember the feel of the blacksmith's gloves curled around his fingers. Dirty with strain, trial and error. Kai preferred to think that being a man and having feelings for another male wasn't wrong, or a disgrace. It was life. You had the right to love the people you did. Other people shouldn't judge that. Love should be effortless. Weightless. You shouldn't have to worry about what other people thought about you or your relationship… it was love. Easy. Peaceful. Worth it.

Kai glanced up at Lloyd. He was smiling, suffering though a noogie from Cole, squishing him over the head with his fist. As a child, Lloyd had been pretty annoying. Kai hadn't even liked him. But after getting to know the twerp, he found they had a lot in common and, face it, Lloyd was fun to be around. Somehow, they'd become best friends, inseparable unless by force. And now, looking at the way he smiled like a little dork, with the way he wasn't worried about anything at the moment but getting out of the noogie position, Kai couldn't help but feel attracted to that kind of carefree living. Lloyd looked like he had no care in the world even though he was going through a lot of stress. Kai wanted to be that way someday, when all this crap was over.

_Love should be peaceful. Easy._

Kai closed his eyes._ Then why do I feel so tortured?_ He thought. He really did. Love made him feel like complete and total shit. _You shouldn't care what other people think_, he told himself. _You shouldn't care who the hell judges you. You can't help it. Love isn't something to be ashamed about, Kai. He makes you a better person, and for that you shouldn't feel so bad. Hell, if anything, everyone should be PROUD. He makes you that much better. Without him…I don't know what I'd be._

Kai opened his eyes.

"You _suck._ Lemme go, Cole. I hate being picked on!" Lloyd wrestled with the tight grip of Cole's arm around his neck. Though it wasn't part of a stranglehold, Lloyd's cheeks looked flushed. He punched Cole with his elbow. "Let. Me. GO! I can't breathe!"

"Nah." Cole poked him in the side. To that, Lloyd gave a noise of either pain or prodigious enmity—which, Kai couldn't tell. "You're too fun to mess with."

"Kai! Make him let me go!" Lloyd coughed. His breath was forced.

Kai stood straighter. _He's hurting him, _he thought. The black ninja must not have understood his own strength. He must've been misjudging it. Cole chuckled. "Aw, running to your bodyguard for help?"

Kai's eyes narrowed. "Let him _go_," he said. Cole looked up at him, a flash in the dark, a glint of silver in his eyes. Kai didn't waste moments crossing the room, grabbing tightly onto Cole's wrist, and ripping it off of Lloyd's throat, taking extreme strength measures to tear the younger blonde out of the black-haired boy's grasp. Lloyd coughed out air into the atmosphere. Kai pulled Lloyd to the side, double checking that Cole wasn't going to pounce on him again, although that wasn't the type of person that Cole was. Kai patted his best friend's back. _I won't let it happen again, _he promised, glad it was only Cole who committed the act. "You okay?"

"Sure," Lloyd sputtered. He rubbed his nose and smiled disdainfully. "Feel great."

"You're not hurt?"

"Nah. Thanks, though." He straightened, rolling off his shoulders, and cracked his knuckles. "Actually, Cole, you cracked my back when you did that. Thanks!" _Like a rubber band, he bounces back, so unusually positive and cheerful…_

"Were you _faking_ choking?" Kai asked. _Oh, you evil little sonofa—_

"Of course. He wasn't holding me that tightly." Lloyd laughed and linked his hands behind his neck. A breath of relief let out of Kai's chest. _I thought you were hurt. You don't know how much it would've hurt me to see you get hurt while I was standing right there._ Cole rolled his eyes and leaned his hand on one of the ground pegs.

Jay wagged his finger. "Tricky," he complimented. "Love it."

Lloyd bowed. _Golden hair, a halo, _Kai thought. _Blue eyes that are deeper than the ocean. A pale face, marked with that weird little birthmark across your cheek. Golden streaks of brows across your face. Tall, lithe, slender, able to maneuver quickly and quietly—a ninja's body. A smile that lights up the whole world whenever it comes, and a latency that makes the whole room light up when you walk in. You make everything so much easier for me. Everything is better when you're around. Everything is…more acceptable. I feel more myself when I'm with you. Like I can't be different when we aren't together. I have never felt this way before in my whole entire life, but every time I look at you, I feel it, deep in my heart, and it keeps telling me that you are my world. You're my everything. Everything I've ever done was for you, brother or not. When I'm with you, everything seems to make sense. More sense than it ever has in my entire life. I realize that everything I've gone through thus far in my life has been because of you, because fate wanted me to find you. Destiny wanted me to meet you. And I'm sure as hell glad I did. Without you…I'm nothing. But with you…We're everything._ Lloyd rubbed the back of his neck, turning without a care in the world, facing Kai with the ultimatum of looking the kid in the eye. His breath disappeared, and suddenly, he was staring at Lloyd with his heart in his throat. It thundered, drums beating softly in the night, a rhythm that only Kai could hear. A melody so sweet his heart ached with the beat. Kai's lips parted. _I'm not gay, _he thought suddenly, feeling every part of him tingling at eye contact with Lloyd. _I'm just in love._

The Green Ninja smiled at him. "Y'all right?"

"Perfect," Kai said, breathless. "Perfect."

And he was.

_Because I'm with you._


	46. Chapter 46

**CHAPTER FORTY-SIX:**  
Rise of Darkness, Fall of Safety

"Misako. Where are you taking me? This place reeks of old paper and must, and smoke, and old paper. Most importantly, it smells like old paper."

Misako chuckled to herself, her hand laced in Damon's. She was towing him along behind her through the long, tapered walls marked by artifacts Older than both of them combined. It held years of memories that Misako was familiar and warm to remembering. This was where the majority of her lifetime had been spent: philosophy defined her heart, and knowledge was her element. She could point to any one of the cased artifacts and recite its history to a 'T'. The staff was her family during the mourning time of missing Damon and Lloyd alike. She practically lived in this place when she was astray without purpose, trying to read up best she could on Lloyd's descent, helping him from afar with big plans for their future. This place was uncannily familiar to her and despite if Damon believed that it smelled like old paper, Misako was hopelessly in love with the museum. This was practically her home!

She tried not to feel the way her nerves tingled under Damon's touch. It was just as though they were young again, when she was still falling in love with him. Even if Damon had been gone all these years, Misako had fallen in love with him every day during his absence. She was not one for Lord Garmadon, but DAMON—the man she knew, the man she wanted to spend forever with—would forever make her heart grow. She nuzzled into his side with their fingers still intertwined. Others may have thought being forty-nine and holding hands like this was weird, but Misako didn't care. No one knew—or needed to know—what they'd gone through to get here.

Misako moved past the Old Leather Room, as the staff had nicknamed it, that held every old pair of remarkable shoes that had been salvaged from Ninjago's ancient times. When automobiles hadn't been imagined, and buggies were the means of transportation. The shoes were unique for their indescribably significant leather pattern and the fact that the shape of leather was nailed to a wooden sole of the shoe. That was how shoes could be afford to made back then. Strangely sufficient. She was in-search for an important employee she was certain had the answers to her questions about the whereabouts of the Mega Weapon.

On their way here, Misako had seen innumerable flyers, billboard coverings, and policemen related to Kai's jail escape. They were searching high and low for him, a convicted "murderer", on the run from law enforcement. Misako knew by heart that sweet Kai was innocent. Thankfully, Danielle was able to remove any part of him that would remind outsiders that he's actually Kai by using a little magic to swap his appearance. He was no longer in resemblance to his previous self. In fact, Misako wouldn't recognize him at all if she had not been warned of his new facial-bodily redo. She knew Kai was safe from the real world—but would he be alright in the supernatural one?

Damon gestured to a cracked, dismantled podium in a glass casing. He paused before the piece of physical tragedy. "What is that?" he asked, squinting at it. "Is that for speeches?"

Misako nodded. "It was used by Mayor Ralloviche before he was assassinated."

"Why the HELL would you want to remember that?!" Damon asked. His face bled incredulosity that Misako had to laugh at. She hadn't laughed in a while. "That's insane. No one wants to remember that ugly piece of history. They put some of the stupidest things in here, i swear. Did you see all those pairs of crude shoes?"

"It's respectable to keep his last-used piece of worldly possessions in here." Misako pointed out. She sighed. "It's looked at as remembering someone who made a difference in our life."

"I've made a difference in everyone's life, too. So when I die, will they take my underwear and stick them in here? Show off my white with hearts as a memorable piece of history?" Damon fueled himself by the laughter of Misako, who tried to keep it quiet for worry of disturbing the other viewers of the museum's prizes. "I can hear fhe tour guides now: 'Damon Garmadon wore these the day he defeated the Great Devourer. They are said to be the luckiest pair of undergarments ever known to man.'" Misako felt her eyes water from her laughter. Damon had always known how to make her smile, laugh like she'd never done it before. She leaned her face into his shoulder to appeal for the giggles she couldn't escape. It would be embarrassing to disturb others. "Or maybe a toothpick. 'Damon used this when he was cleaning his teeth after eating a cheeseburger. Please, no flash photography. We want to preserve the wood.'"

Misako smacked his arm, grinning. Damon looked at her with soft eyes. "You're a handful," Misako said, pulling him close. She was afraid to let him go. What if he disappeared again? It was always something she feared, a day she didn't want to come any more than the day he'd changes. She didn't want Damon to disappear.

"Mmm. Seems I am." Damon smiled. "You'll have to get used to it." He tightened his grip on Misako's warm hand for half a second. Momentarily, the elder woman felt like a young soul again, mentally depraved of a sense of _rightness _that came with good choices. Her father had never liked Damon. _All he'll do is break your heart. Hell, you'd be better off with his brother. At least that boy's got potential. _

Damon, over the years, _had _broken Misako's heart. But it was love that powered her through surviving the nasty things that Garmadon had done to—

"_MISAKO?! Misako Garmadon?!"_

She leaned her head off her husband's shoulder to look over her own at the man striding towards them. Clad in a suit and bowtie, the male's hair was graying, pressed neatly against his head with slick hair gel, and his chin slipped by a single gray goatee. His glasses were kaleidoscopes to the emotion in his eyes. His smile ringed pearly white teeth. "Misako! How _great _to see you!" said the owner of the museum, Red Hopkins. Misako's face broke into a smile. When staying in this place for countless hours, Misako had developed quite the bond with Red, a man of loyalty and devotion to the miscellanies of history that they harbored within the museum's tall brown walls. Many a day had they spent wrapped in text books, olden relics, and web research just to help Misako's cause—and all out of the courtesy of Red's heart. All she'd asked for was a simple directory as to where she should start looking in her philosophies—it was an entire package that Red loaned her with his strengths in Ninjago's antiquities that helped her even _remotely _come as far as she did. She had a lot to owe the man. On any normal circumstance, Misako would've been pleased to see him.

But standing beside her recovered husband, a man she hadn't thought she'd ever be with again after his plenty attempts to slash down the Ninja and Ninjago with them, Misako couldn't help but feel sick to her stomach.

This wasn't the time for old lovers to arise. Red strode across the cool tile floor towards her with an expression on his face that Misako wasn't delighted to see. Despite that his age-well looks still lingered, he seemed different on a note she couldn't name. He moved towards her with a cocky smile. _Oh, no, _she thought, feeling Garmadon's body tighten at her side. _Oh, no. This isn't good. _Of course, Misako had known she'd run into him eventually, whether it be purposeful or accidental, but she'd done her best to avoid this. She'd even happened to be in the part of the museum that Red was hardly ever in; his rounds normally consisted of the more _central, _viewed particles of the museum's gallery rather than the outdated section. The outdated section, that is, that holds the lamer qualities. Such as the podium of a dead mayor. (Misako actually did sort of agree with Damon about how stupid it was to keep it. The thing was no longer in mint condition.)

Misako's nervous smile did not waver her former colleague. She hadn't seen him since—well, since the day that Lloyd had come to the museum, where she'd first met him again, a fully grown teenager missing the younger years of his life that Misako had missed. Then, Misako had left Red and the museum's treasures completely behind in sacrifice for being with her son again. Yet now here he was, glowing and old, in front of her, beaming worse than fluorescents.

"I never thought I'd see you again!" Red laughed. Without even bothering to ask permission, Red swooped her into his arms and pulled her close. The hug brought Misako completely off guard—she wasn't expecting such informal behavior in his workplace—and left her fearing for what Damon would do. _I hope he doesn't figure it out, _she thought, squeezing shut her eyes and trying to wriggle from Red's infuriating grasp. _I hope he doesn't know who Red is. I hope. _She wouldn't be able to imagine how Damon would react if he knew. It would be a case of Misako mediating again, just like when Damon and Wu fought over her…and that was, indeed, one of the worst days of her life. _A battleground between brothers, No Man's Land, that Misako could only trudge through in a thicket of overborne hatred, despise, and free-grown self-hatred. _

"It's so great to see you," Red murmured in her ear. Misako slid her hands up his chest and tried to pull away, but someone _else _did that for her. Her heart leaped into her throat. This was not good.

"AHEM," Damon snapped, yanking Misako roughly out of Red's grasp. When she finally built the courage path to look at him, Damon's eyes were narrowed in suspicion and overprotection. _It's funny, _she thought, closing her eyes briefly. _Lloyd did that one time with the same expression. And to think, they're not even related…_ "WHAT in NINJAGO do you THINK you are DOING? Don't you know it's RUDE to hug other men's WIVES?"

Red looked emotionless. Misako was not expecting the lack of reaction, but felt her cheeks burn even more. He didn't look at her. "You must be Damon," said Red, professionally placing out his hand for a handshake. "I'm Red Hopkins, owner of the museum. I helped Misako out while you were…away." Red's voice ended at a strange note when he uttered the word _away. _

Damon's lip curled in disgust. It normally did that when Damon was having a hard time coping with the idiot before him, but Misako didn't think Red was an idiot. _Of course not, _said a voice in her head. _You were his lover while Damon was gone. If he was to be an idiot, you wouldn't have slept with him, would you? _

Misako winced at her own thoughts. How could she say something like that to herself? Red smiled thickly at Damon, a smile that said _I'm only putting up with you for her sake, you disgusting dirtbag. _Misako had told Red everything about Damon—what kind of man he was, his personality, the things he'd done. By the end of it, the husband whom Misako had believed was the end-all-be-all had become a twisted figure of death in Red's mind. Only from her descriptions and detailed tales did Red know Damon. But nonetheless, this would not end well. It ended worse with Damon and Wu. How would the outcome of this begin?

"Is that so?" Damon said. His tone didn't sound suspicious, but rather disinterested. Misako couldn't tell if it was genuine or not; Damon had an uncanny ability to misconvey his emotions. What he pretended to feel probably was never real when it came to shuffling around the people he disliked. Damon's "disinterest" now could _really _have been suspicion. Misako's nails came into contact with her teeth, which she chewed for a moment before realizing it was silly to do so. She needed to keep an eye on the task at hand.

She squared her shoulders. She was all business now. _For Lloyd, _she reminded herself. "Red, I need your help. There was an artifact that authorities found recently that I was wondering if you'd seen. My theories were that perhaps you had acquired it and displayed it in your museum." Her heart was pounding, but she had to forge through. At Red's glossy-eyed look, listening and patient, she strode on. "At the scene of the crime at Darkley's a few months back, there was a golden weapon found that I need access to. It's extremely dangerous to have in public care. If you'd just…let me see it…I would be much obliged. Assuming you have it, of course."

Red didn't blink. He seemed to understand exactly what Misako was referencing, to her relief. "You mean the golden staff found near that dead boy's body?" When Misako nodded, he pursed his lips. "It was taken in for police evidence. But when no one could seem to hold it without having their hands start to burn, they shipped it off to a chemical lab in Birchwood Forest. Thought perhaps it was radioactive."

Misako's heart sank. _So it isn't here, _she concluded silently, feeling defeated. The reason the police couldn't hold it—wearing gloves or not—was that only one being could actually hold and harness the Mega Weapon. That individual used to be Damon, then under the alias Lord Garmadon, but somehow transferred the ability to Eloquim. She was still trying to unravel the mystery of how the Shadow Dancer was able wield the most powerful weapon in all of Ninjago without disintegrating—as those police would've done if carrying it for too long. Where had he even gotten the Golden Weapons to create it? According to the Ninja, they'd destroyed the Golden Weapons on a strange trip into the past to prevent Lord Garmadon from messing with history, and ultimately messing with history themselves. If those weapons didn't exist, where had Eloquim gotten them to create the Mega Weapon?

"Do you have any idea which lab that is?" Damon asked directly, crossing his arms over his chest. He was willing to advance through the bump in the road to find this somehow existent Mega Weapon.

Red shook his head. "All I know is it's a resolute place in Birchwood. They haven't gotten any tests back yet. I don't know what's with that weapon, or why you say it's dangerous, but I don't think I want to know." Red shrugged. "I'm just a philosopher, not a supernaturalist."

Misako looked at her feet. "Now what will we do?" She asked Damon, unable to bend her head and look him in the eye. To do that would to be facing her husband while her former ex was standing in front of her. Instead, she pretended to be interested in readjusting her ascot around her throat.

"Look for this damn lab. We need to get the Mega Weapon before someone else does," said Damon in a growl. His icy hand cupped her face. The contact startled her warm cheeks. He grabbed her chin between his thumb and forefinger, dragging her gaze to his. There, Misako didn't see anything resembling Red or herself, but rather determination. He dropped his voice lowly so only Misako would hear. "We'll go back to _you know where"—_clever of him not to mention the monastery in public—"and discuss our next plan. I'm sure the others would agree that advancing on that lab is the best tactic to getting the Mega Weapon back. We can't let _them _get it. Lord knows what hell would happen then."

To admit it, Misako knew that Damon was probably right. Heading back to the others to find out what plan the horde of them wanted to take was smart. She nodded to him. "Yes." Misako slipped her mobile out of the front pocket of her jeans. "I'll call Lloyd on the way out. He'd know what to do." Then, not wanting to be rude, she turned to Red, trying to keep her composure inscrutable. Her ex's eyes roved over her face. For the first time, she could really see how he looked at her, as though he was trying to accept that they were no longer together. _I hate that look, _she thought. "Thank you for your help, Red. It means a lot to me. It was good to see you—I'll keep in touch." She added that last part out of guilt. Red gave her a soft smile that she didn't want to look at any more than she had to. She was grateful for his help, but standing in the same room with him was beginning to be unbearable. She held tightly onto Damon's hand with her free one while pressing her classic mobile against her ear.

Their paces were quick, but Misako threw a look over her shoulder at Red. The old man was standing in the middle of the room, staring after their depart, with a look on his face she couldn't process quick enough before Damon pulled her out of the room completely. Something on his face hadn't been right. _Red doesn't normally make those faces, _she observed, but listened to the soft ringing of Lloyd's cell on the other end. She prayed he'd pick up…

**~Yang~**

"Light on your feet!" I shouted, jumping back onto a higher peg from a previous low one. Jutting from the ground, the thick wooden stumps were used to demonstrate exactly _how _light on their feet a ninja should be. Jay stood a good while away from me with his whole body rickety and unbalanced. He looked like a quarterback in ballet class with the way he kept falling off the pedestals at my attacks. I wasn't doing anything but Basic 101. Just a few jabs, faulty bouts, that kind of jazz. But Jay seemed to be taking it awful horribly. He kept falling and bruising himself. It looked hard to believe this guy used to be a professional ninja. Jay waved his arms in the air to try and keep his balance while doing the crane on a peg lower than mine. "You can't let yourself sway at all. Otherwise you're being a klutz, and doing very klutzy things will not get you anywhere."

"It's _hard," _Jay whined. He shimmied his feet to regain contrast on his position, but where I was leaping easily from peg to peg, he was stuck on his second one.

"It's not like you haven't done it before," I said. I propelled myself off of three other pegs by hitting the sides with my feet, taking all of about a second and a half, to land quickly behind him. Jay's consternated face was making it difficult for me not to smile. "I remember you were the one who used to have to teach me these pegs when I was younger, because you were the best at them. No one else had the perfect balance you did."

Jay wrinkled his nose. I danced around him across several more pegs before throwing out my leg in a spin-kick. Jay squeaked and, in a moment of weakness, jumped backwards off his own dowel. When his feet hit the solid floor beneath him, several inches below me, he chickened out quickly. "YOU COULDA KICKED ME IN THE HEAD!" He yowled. I rolled my eyes.

"I was aiming for your feet, dummy," I said. "A real ninja would've neatly jumped _away _from that attack and landed on a different platform—_without _making any noise. That yell you just did would've alerted the enemy—or pedestrians—that you were nearby. You would've been killed instantly." I snapped my fingers to accentuate. Jay's face turned sour.

"Can't I do what Zane's doing?" He asked, and motioned to the spinning-dummies where Kai oversaw Zane's clearance of the mini-course with crossed arms. Zane punched and ducked the swirling dummies with ease and grace. At least one of them still had the ninja efficiency in them. My concentration was directed towards Kai for a temporary second. His face was impassive, empty, but I knew that Kai was thinking hard the moment I saw him. His focus was only partially on Zane's performance. _Something's bugging him, _the Mind's Eye voice chimed. _Maybe you should discuss it._

"I'm busy," I said aloud.

Jay looked at me funny. "What?"

"Nothing…" I jumped off my peg and landed on the floorboards without the slightest of sounds. Jay scowled. He mumbled something like _show off _that I only half heard, but regarded with a smirk. Cole was throwing small obstacles on the ground where Zane's feet ran to try and throw him off track, but Zane was doing remarkably well in avoiding what "lemons" that "life" threw at him. In the back corner, farthest from reach, Sensei Wu observed quietly, ready to intervene. It was almost like when the Ninja were training me; he hardly ever had input unless it was a statement in that of a distant cousin to a fortune cookie's. I wondered if he was doing that for learning purposes or if he was just unable to train us right because he wasn't the real Sensei.

I'd noticed that when Sensei said he had to "go get something" earlier, he hadn't brought anything back. It made me wonder: What was he doing? I didn't expect him to be completely honest with us—like I said, he wasn't the real Sensei, and he technically had no obligation to tell us anything. It must've been hardwired in his programming to help us out or something. But I couldn't help but have a strange feeling in my stomach. He was hiding something from us.

Or maybe just from _me._

Either way, I was glad to have him _and _Kai and Cole to help me teach these two. By the looks of it, Zane would catch on quickly, but it would take Jay some time to fall back into routine. I looked at Jay and sighed. "Let's move onto the punching bags, I guess."

"The spinning ones?" Jay pointed to the contraption. I nodded. I couldn't explain how many times I'd had my face practically caved in and my nose pointed inwards from getting smacked by that thing as a kid. Now, I was able to avoid disaster. At least. I itched my arm under the skin irritation. Jay moved towards the punching bags without protest, although I wasn't too excited. These things kicked my butt _every _time.

Sensing my unease, Cole sidled up beside me, gently nudging me with his elbow. "I got it, kid," he said, stealing my old nickname with vain. I glared at the back of his head as he set up the mini-course for Jay to train with. That left me pointless and task-less in the name of all things educational. I walked up behind Zane and watched him clear it for a while. Kai seemed to be giving out encouraging feedback, awake from his previous distant attitude, his eyes more tuned in to reality.

"That's it. A little heavy on your Vertical Punch. Try to lessen the tension in your hips; those are a key player in getting it right. If you're locking up your muscles and not letting your body move swiftly, you won't be able to deliver the punch correctly." Kai's voice wasn't loud, but it wasn't soft. He was encouraging Zane from the deepness of his Caring Well. A selfless moment he spent training his brother in dedication to the public. I smiled.

I had already picked out Kai's future within a short time span. I poked his arm to gather his attention. "You're gonna be a sensei someday. Maybe not as _bad _as Sensei Wu, but you'll be a sensei. I know it."

Kai rolled his eyes. He didn't respond to me, but gave constructive criticism to Zane's re-modified punch. He was doing a pretty good job for being a teacher—Zane was doing just as good by listening and taking that reproach and working with it. I had never seen him train in the beginning the first time around when becoming a ninja was vital to his lifestyle, but I could very easily assume he was the best student ever. _Not to be mean, _but a lot better than Jay, who repelled my advice like two magnets resisted opposite sides. I rolled back my shoulders until I heard the satisfying _pop _ring in my ears.

Or, wait a second, that was the cell phone that Danielle had given me before we'd left. I frowned at the crappy ringtone coming from the soft vibration of it inside of my back pocket. After exchanging a glance with Kai, I slid the small mobile into my palm and looked at the contact ID. _Misako. _Why was Mom calling me?

Since it was pretty much against the rules to decline a call from your mother, I flipped it open and pressed the cold receiver to my ear. "Hello?" I said, hearing the crumble of noise on the other end.

"Lloyd?" I heard Misako's voice fill my ear. I rubbed my forehead.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Lloyd, your father and I are leaving the museum. The Mega Weapon isn't here; it's at a laboratory in Birchwood Forest. It's being processed for radioactivity, but we need to get it soon. If it's in such an obvious place there's no doubt that the…enemy…wouldn't be able to get to it."

I frowned. _The Mega Weapon…that crazy weapon that the guys talked about all the time back then? "_Why would it be in-processing for radioactivity?" I asked, trying to half-understand this. I hadn't even known my parents were at the museum.

Kai was watching me intently. Setting that aside, I looked at the floor while listening to Mom from the other end. "Humans can't hold it. No one but a particular being can really hold it, which that person used to be your father—"

"Wait a sec, Mom. Imma put you on speaker so the others can hear this, okay?"

"Okay…"

I pulled the phone from my ear, and, after a hard second of trying to understand the buttons, found the _speaker _operation. A moment later, I spoke from a distance, where Cole, Kai, and Sensei moved closer. Jay and Zane didn't bother to continue their training and pretend to be interested; the main was on in the words my mother had to say. "So, you're saying humans can't hold the Mega Weapon?"

"No," said Mom's voice, louder on speaker than before. Her repeated octaves filled the room corner-to-corner. "There used to be only one person who could hold it without facing major injury or death, and that was Lord Garmadon. Now that Lord Garmadon no longer exists—well, I guess I don't really know how it works. Eloquim seemed to have the power to hold and brandish the Mega Weapon without any issues. What I want to know is how he was able to do that. Anyway, the humans would get burned every time they touched it, which is a usual symptom. Since it was marked as evidence in the Tudabone murder case, the police are the only ones who have access to it outside of the lab they sent it to to process the weapon for radioactivity, which is their theory for why no one can touch it. However, the reason is just simple magic."

At my side, Cole was nodding. "So are we going to infiltrate this lab, or what?"

"I was thinking we could return home and come up with a plan, but I believed the same, yes."

"Is it wise to dive headfirst into this?" I asked, weary. "I mean, do you know what lab it is?"

Mom paused. "…No…but it's Birchwood Forest. I'm sure finding a place in the middle of that wouldn't be too hard."

"So would we crack a plan and do what we always do?" Kai rubbed his neck. "Jump into it, snatch the Mega Weapon, and save the day? Or what do you have in mind?"

"Damon is thinking out ways, but I think it's better to discuss this at home—" On the other end of the line, there was a soft noise. I listened harder and heard my father's voice, deep and harmonious, say, _"What's he doing here?" _

_…_

The echoes of Lloyd's voice on the other end of the phone were nothing against the way the wind whipped against Misako's skin, giving her wind burn on the spot. They'd just exited the exhibition hall, rounding the placard corner to the cul-de-sac they'd parked beside, with not a dollop of plan devised yet. Misako couldn't think of anything war-like. Her forte wasn't battle strategies, but her husband may score earlier into that court. Damon jingled the keys in his hands as they walked. But nearing, Misako saw a familiar shape leaning against the side of their smaller vehicle, superficially employed by the fascination with his nails. She slowed her pace at the same time Damon did. "What's he doing here?" Damon asked. The person seemed oblivious to their arrival, only twenty feet away, but Misako's sharp senses told her he _knew _they were there. There was no reason to leap any more forward than the goat would take them. The glint of tinted glasses in the distance made her whole body turn to stone. She felt her breath instantly freeze against the outline of her lungs.

_"Damon," _she hissed, too late.

Misako knew just who he was. A fake. A replica. A scheming follower to a dark cause. She clenched her fist around her phone and stopped listening to Lloyd's reaches for response through the speaker.

Bizarro Jay turned his head and grinned. "Hey, Garmadon," he said casually, straightening. Misako stepped closer to her husband when he moved her, forcibly, behind her. "Long time no see." The fake wearing aviators moved across the parking lot with a slow gait, but he closed in fast like a predator on prey.

"What do _you _want?" Damon snapped.

The Bizarro paused six feet in front of him. His distance was long, but there was no doubt that he could clear it in less than a second if he needed to attack. "I came to peacefully ask you to stop your search for the Mega Weapon. It's putting a damper on my master's plans."

_Master. _Beforehand, Lord Garmadon had been the ultimate master of the Bizarro Ninja. But now that Lord Garmadon was nothing, that must've meant they transferred their services to someone else…but Misako could've sworn that they had been defeated already by the _real _Ninja. She wasn't going to doubt that dark magic had to do with this. She held tight to the phone in her hand and kept it running, hearing her son on the other end, so _he _could hear the Bizarro's voice.

Damon curled his lip again. "There is no way we're letting you have it."

The Bizarro _tsk_ed his tongue. "Too bad," he said soberly. He hung his head, and with the motion plucked off the masking sunglasses. His eyes were a deep, intense green. Misako could feel them burn into her own, staring with a cocky smirk that made her whole body ache with the tension in her muscles. His gaze was chilly, empty. Nothing like Jay's own. Green seemed to be evil's trademark. "I actually liked you. But, I guess, nothing good ever lasts, does it?"

There seemed to be a deeper underlying meaning to that, but Misako wasn't willing to go there. He had to be referencing their marriage, for the way that he gave Misako a knowing look. She held tightly onto Damon's hand.

Damon let out a gruff sigh. "Are you done playing Wisdom Master? I'd like to go home now."

"And where exactly is that?" Bizarro Jay tested his limits by leering closer, his feet crunching dangerously in only a few feet from them. Misako knew there was going to be a fight—or, at least, an attempt to fight, but either would end horribly. The Bizarro was looking for trouble that Misako was not willing to give. "Back at your precious little monastery castle? Ya know, that place won't hold us out for long. You may have had your witch to put protective spells on it, but I think she's run into a little…ah…_trouble, _should I say_." _

Damon's nose twitched. "What's _that _supposed to mean?" He snapped. Misako _knew _something bad had happened by the way her bones turned to stone. Danielle and Maya had set out on their _own _special mission, but had the Bizarro intercepted them? Or was this just Jay's ploy to try and confuse them, get them concerned enough to let down their guard?

Jay's lips twitched. He was trying not to smile. "Oh, you know. Just getting kidnapped and hogtied before thrown into a special place for her to stay. Kinda cozy in there, I think. But, that's just my opinion."

_Did they get Maya too? _Misako wondered. Damon's fingers ripped out of hers and bowled into clenches, punches ready to be thrown. "Why, you, son of a—"

"Jeez, Jace, could you _be _more of a blabbermouth? That takes all the fun out of it, dude."

Misako turned at the sound of the _other _familiar voice. Strolling up behind them in six feet of dark clothing, Ray Bans, and expensive boots, was Cole's own Bizarro. His sloped smile exuded a story that foretold a dark truth for Misako and Damon. His hands, laced with the loops of his belt holders, were dark and tanned, like his skin. But with him he carried a switchblade. Long, and open, and lethal.

"Save some of it for _us _next time, why don't you? I find it extremely inconvenient that when I arrive on the premises you have already projected half of the story. It is unwise to save all the details for oneself, for it will definitely end in assault later."

Misako expected to see Bizarro Zane moving into the parking lot at their right, appearing from nowhere. They were surrounded, except for their right, but that was the building's wall. _Of course Bizarro Kai won't show himself, _Misako thought. _He's wanted for murder. One step outside, and the police would have him. _The fake of an angel wore his own sunglasses, white shirt underneath a leather jacket, and old jeans. He wiggled his fingers at Misako in a hello. "Nice to see you," he said politely.

"ASH! Don't compliment the prisoners! That's totally against the code, man!" The one called "Jace" held out his hands in a _what the hell _movement at Zane's "Ash." Ash appeared not to have a reaction underneath his shades.

"I do not recall there being a code."

Jace smacked his face into his palm, sighing heavily. It seemed like the Bizarro were quite similar to their doubles, if not a little worse than them. They acted similar, but were profoundly dysfunctional in the ways that the Ninja were not. The Ninja actually built off the mispronunciations of their team. These three seemed to operate the total opposite of that. _Could we use that against them? _Misako wondered.

"Ash, you're hopeless," Cole's double growled. "We're leaving you home next time."

"That is quite unfair."

"Suck it."

"Ah, that's _your _job, Fang," said Jace, turning to the dark double. "Not his."

Ash put his fingers to his lips thoughtfully. "I think we are losing sight of the task at hand. Perhaps we should continue with the interrogation before developing into consistent arguments that we most likely will not have the willpower to stop, therefore resulting in failing our mission and upsetting our master."

Misako swallowed hard. Damon looked angrier than she'd seen him in a while. "You can't stop us from getting that Mega Weapon," said Damon. "It's ours, and we're taking it back."

Misako heard the rumble of Lloyd's voice on the other end of the phone, no longer pressed to her ear, saying something she probably should've been listening to. She slyly moved it a little closer without putting it to her face. "_—need to stall them. We're coming as soon as we can. Okay? Hold out for us, Mom. I know you can." _

The flick of the switchblade behind Misako made her swallow hard again. This wasn't going to end any better than it would of another day. Jace produced, from the hem of his pants, a small silver handgun, loaded and pointed amiably towards the couple. Ash held in his own, pulling from the sleeve of his jacket, a metal bar that would be used to smash in their heads if necessary. Misako felt herself breathing, "Oh, god, they have weapons."

_"Don't worry. Stall them verbally and they won't be able to get to you before we get there," _said Kai from the other end of the speaker. Misako had forgotten they were there. _"Don't say anything to tip them off. They're dangerous. I wouldn't make a bet with any of them." _

Damon cracked his knuckles. "I'm not afraid of you," he said. "I created you. You can't harm _me. _You have no ability to disobey me!" Misako knew this was some sort of tactic, but all the Bizarro began snickering at his try.

"Wrong, Grampa," said Jace.

Fang's boots scratched closer against the tar. "We were created by _Lord Garmadon. _You're not Lord Garmadon anymore, are you?"

Damon started, "I am still—"

A gunshot went off. It hit the ground right before Damon's feet, making him jump back to avoid being shot. Misako let a small cry slip from her lips. Jace pointed the gun towards them again, looking almighty and powerful with a weapon in his hands, relentlessly able to attack without remorse. They were not beyond hurting the Garmadons to get what they wanted. "You listen to _me _now, bitch," growled Jace. "Your wife's life is in my hands. One wrong move and I'll shoot her brains out."

"You WILL NOT HURT MY WIFE!" yelled Damon. He stood up again, carried only by his own self-confidence. Misako couldn't say the same for herself.

"Oh yeah?"

_"Hold on, Misako, we're coming." _Cole's sweet voice said from the phone.

Fang slinked closer. Misako kept an eye on him out the corner of her eye in case he'd try something. "We already killed off _one _of the little Ninja's parents when he irritated Ash. What the hell makes you bastards think we wouldn't do it again?"

"WHO?" Misako whirled now, finally speaking for once. They better just be bluffing. If they weren't bluffing, Misako was going to unleash her own compositions on them. Imagining the thought of one of her friends being killed off because of some ratty old fake made her stomach twist. Which was it? Lou? Ed? Edna? _Julien? _The response she got came with a little chortle from Fang, but the answer didn't come from his mouth.

"We captured two others, but personally I murdered the annoying man." Misako whirled on Ash the moment he said it. _The annoying man, _she thought. That could've meant Ed or Julien or Lou—and which of the three she wasn't sure. Ash seemed to sense the thoughts running through her mind. "The doctor named Julien was already dead when we got to his little hidden lab. Drank poison to kill himself. But _I _slaughtered the middle-aged idiot who figured show tunes passed time."

Misako stopped. _Lou…and Julien…are…dead? No. No, this can't be true, it must be…a lie. They aren't dead. These people are bluffing. Trying to get me to think otherwise, but I…I don't…What if it isn't a lie? They're willing to kill me. They wouldn't be beyond killing the others. They must've captured Lou, Ed, and Edna when they were driving to the monastery. And Lou must've been singing because he was scared, and Ash came at him and…_Misako looked at the bar in Ash's hands. There, staring at it, she could make out the softer, darker tint of a color amongst the deep gray.

Blood.

It could've been anyone's. It didn't necessarily mean that it was LOU's blood. It couldn't have been. No way. It couldn't be. Misako didn't know what to do. Julien and Lou were her _friends. _

She felt her knees give, and Misako clattered to the floor like a discarded children's toy. The phone flew out of her grasp. Dangled in mid-air, hovering, slowly moving…Misako's heart was all she could hear, and it hurt.

…

A hand caught the phone. Damon knelt down quickly beside Misako. He wrapped his hand around her arm, tilting back his head to look at the Bizarro holding Misako's phone. Fang examined it in his grasp. "Huh. A current outgoing call. Who're you talking to?" He asked, but answered his own question. "Ohhhhh, your little _son! _I get it. How's he doing, by the way? Let's see." Fang's thumb pushed against a button, and a moment later, the speaker option of the phone revealed Lloyd's voice, loud and angry on the other end.

"—swear to _god _if you hurt my mother in any way, shape or form, I will slaughter you until you're nothing but chunks of flesh and drops of blood." Lloyd sounded angry, but beneath that Damon could hear the worry. He wrapped his arms around Misako to help her into a standing position.

"You're all talk, little man," said Fang. He held the phone horizontally in front of him so that Lloyd could hear everything. "You can't do anything to us."

"You don't want to make that bet," spat Lloyd. Damon had never heard his son so dark, so completely shadowed before. "I have more to me than you know. I will fucking _hunt you down _if you do so much as lay a hand on my parents. You got me?"

"What makes you think we haven't already?" yelled Jace to be heard from the distance. Damon wrapped his arms around Misako. The thought of their friends dead made he, too, feel weak and uncannily frozen. He tried to wrap his own mind around it.

"Listen, you BASTARD," snarled another voice, and this time, it belonged to Cole. "I am _not _going to put up with this. You had better not hurt my friends, and you had better not have hurt my father."

"I did," said Ash loudly. "You can see his corpse if you'd like to."

An animalistic snarl came from the other end. Damon knew that the vampire boy was less than satisfied with these goons. Suddenly, the retired lord felt as though he'd done wrong by creating these Bizarro. He should've known something awful would come from this.

"You're hilarious," said Fang, and he nodded towards Jace. Damon heard the cocking of a gun. "Here's an early birthday present for you, Green Ninja. Have at it."

Another gunshot went off.

Damon howled in pain. The front of his shirt slowly pooled with warm blood; it was impossible to understand in such a short amount of time. The bullet wound in his stomach turned the T-shirt a soaked shade of gray, deeper, darker, luminate. Warmth stuck the front of the blossoming rose in his stomach to his skin. He wrapped half a mind around the fact that he'd just been shot, but the rest of it was listening to Misako scream his name. He felt cold, hard ground hit his back. _When did I fall…? _He thought. More warmth pooled the back of his head. Had he cracked it on the tar?

Everything…was so…hazy. Misako's beautiful face danced in his vision. Through a sheen of uncertain, blurry images, he saw her crying. She pressed her hand against the side of his face. Wailing for him, shaking his head to catch his attention. Damon looked up at her without understanding. _Don't cry, my love, _he wanted to say, but he couldn't force his lungs to form the words. Instead he opened his mouth to say something, but blood bubbled on his lips. It trailed in a soft river down the side of his mouth. Misako's tears fell onto his cheeks, but soon he couldn't feel them. He was going numb. Sinking, slowly falling, disappearing. _It's…funny, _he thought, looking at the gray sky. It was so gray, he thought it would start crying soon. _Everyone…always said…my evil would destroy me. It's…funny…how true that is…_Damon blindly reached out for Misako's hand. He clutched onto it when she pulled it to her lips. Her mouth was warm against his icy hands. His lips bubbled with blood, but he had to form the words. "Misako..." he coughed. He barely saw the blood splatted onto her face from his lips. "I…love you. I always…have. Tell Lloyd…I love him too. I never doubted him. Tell him…that I'm sorry that I couldn't be…"

Damon never finished. His eyes stared at the gray sky again. Like he'd predicted, it started to cry. Wet water fell across his face. He looked at Misako's beautiful brown eyes one more time, looking at her, remembering how much he loved her—

And then it all faded into black.

…

"DAAMONNNNNNNNNNNNNN!" wailed Misako. "Damon, _look at me! Look at me, Damon! Damon, please!" _

Fang sighed. This wasn't exactly fun anymore. He was cornered by the screams coming from the phone _and _from Misako, and he could only eliminate one of those. Fang tossed aside the cell phone. Then, he looked at Ash from across the pavilion and ordered him to grab the truck; with complying attitude, Ash disappeared. Fang could feel the gathering of people coming from inside the museum at the sound of the gunshots. Of course, people were nosy bastards and couldn't keep from their own business, but all the same, they had a game to play. Fang moved over to Misako and ripped her off the "indomitable" Lord Garmadon with no sympathy. People shouted from behind him.

Oh, you idiots. Fang ignored Misako's screams and shoved her into Jace's arms. "Keep this one alive. The Mistress would like that." He flipped rain out of his face with a swish of hair. As Ash backed the white van in, Fang turned to the crowd of people, all of whom were probably calling the police department. They'd be gone before the authorities arrived, but he wanted to make sure that they remembered his face. Just like Kayus had done when overthrowing Kai's freedom, Fang stepped closer to the people and waved. "Hey, guys," he said, showing off his Cole-similar face. The people gasped.

"A NINJA! IT'S ONE OF THE NINJA!"

_Better give them nightmares, _he thought, and felt his vampiric face begin to transform. The people's eyes grew wide, the size of plates. "VAMPIRE!" "A DEMON!" "MONSTER!" His fangs and assisting crouch made people scream and run. He gave a long snarl of anger towards them. There was no one who stayed behind to face the vampire, instead all turning and running. There were perks to this. Fang straightened and dusted off his hands. Mission complete.

Jace threw Misako in the back of the van. "Wanna bring him, too?" he asked, pointing to the corpse.

Fang didn't hesitate. "No. He serves as a warning for those stupid Ninja who here is boss." He walked right past Damon's dead body without a flicker of remorse. Jace slammed shut the back of the van after tying Misako up and slapping duct tape over that woman's wailing mouth. _The Mistress will be pleased, _he thought, until he heard the soft patter of not rain, but footsteps behind him. He turned and saw Red Hopkins standing at his side, looking emptily towards the back of the van. Jace jumped into the passenger seat.

"How'd we do?" asked Fang.

Red blinked. "Well done. Those pesky Ninja will be weakened without their parents now." He sighed. "Now all we have to do is go to the _real _location of the Mega Weapon and get me back my power."

"Clever, feeding them lies. That'll keep them off our tails for a while, huh?" Fang cracked his knuckles. "So when do we get to set up the next wormhole, boss?"

Red looked at him with piercing green eyes. "Tomorrow night," he said. "We will discuss this back at headquarters. Now be gone with you before the troublesome authorities come. I don't want any trouble."

"Sure thing." Fang moved towards the van when Ash honked. But at the last second, he turned. Instead of finding Red there, he found another form, another disguise. Maya Kiko, original vampire that they'd already caught and captured. Fang grinned. "Give them something to fear for me, will you, Kaos?"

"Maya Kiko" shifted positions. "Whatever," she said, and looked away. The wail of sirens in the distance made her turn. "Get going. I'll keep the Ninja busy for a while."

Fang soluted. "Aye, aye, Captain," he said. He jumped into the van.

Mission accomplished. Mission accomplished, indeed.


	47. Chapter 47

**CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN:  
**Loopholes

_Before Damon and Misako had left home, he had to run inside and pack a few of his things for the trip. He walked down his staircase. Would he ever come back here again? Only time would tell if he'd return to his true home or not. All he could do was keep his head straight and look ahead—after all, that was why he had eyes in the front of his head, right?_

_"Damon," whispered a voice from the kitchen. Damon, lingering in the hallway with a suitcase full of his things, was startled by the immense need to whisper when no one was in the house but him. He turned his head to find Danielle standing between the threshold of the doorway, her hands clasped over what seemed to be a miniature vial, looking as shady as Damon had ever seen a teenager. He glanced warily at the open front door before considering a proper, witty response. _

_Case in point, Damon didn't trust her any more than he trusted her evil twin. _

_"What?" he finally snapped, unable to conjure up something snarky when half his attention was trained on Lloyd, standing in the front yard with overdone Kai at his side, speaking concernably about something Damon couldn't hear. He was worried about his miscellaneous son. A father's worst fear come alive—at least, as a Garmadon, anyway—that his son may be ruined by the same substance that ruined HIM. _

_It also didn't help his mood that Lloyd's young biological mother was standing in the same room as his adopted father. His mood was already bad enough, but to have a literal witch cat-calling him from the kitchen irritated him more._

_Danielle blinked. "Damon, I made something for you," she explained softly. "Before you and Misako depart, you must consume this potion." She handed him, arm outstretched, the vial she was clasping in her palms, a holder no bigger than Damon's pinkie. He frowned at the clear liquid inside, held shut by a miraculous rubber stopper, without a clue what it was supposed to do. He turned it around in his hands. He found it difficult to accept a stupid gift like this from someone he wasn't a fan of, and to what extent would this potion take him? Before he could ask, Danielle's mouth began speaking again. "I have had a premonition that something might happen while you and Misako are so out in the open, without any protection to shield you." She said. "I felt as though you were the one in awful danger. That is why I have prepared you a special elixir. It is a quick-healing medicine as well as a rebirth tonic, just in case your heart stops at any point in time. It is only valid for a maximum of four hours, but after that, the potion will become worthless. You must take it now, but not spend too much time away from the monastery, otherwise your chances of survival, should something happen, will decrease."_

_Damon frowned at the mistily-clear liquid, holding it up to his eyes. He didn't quite understand the time limit on how valid the potion would be after so long, but gave the strange woman a sidelong glance. Trust didn't come easy. It must be earned. He didn't believe that this witch had very well earned Damon's trust—earning _his_ trust was an immense task, one thus far that Danielle had failed—enough to deserve the privilege of giving him a reviving solution. "And if I take this now, what will it do to me?" _

_"It will prepare your organs for serious injury or possibly death, therefore strengthening them and disbanding a thin layer of protective sheens across your insides, keeping them new and fresh. If something awful were to happen, your insides would already be renewed, so they would not die in the process, but rather rebuild itself around the wound quickly. The healing time will be much faster than real healing time. If your heart should stop, there will already be a significant amount of antibodies and other protective bacteria in your veins to suddenly reimburse your heartbeat, therefore deeming you alive again. There may be a period of unconsciousness before you reawaken, but I assure you, you will be completely healed when you do."_

_Damon curled his lip at her. There wasn't supposed to be an insult, but rather disbelief. "Why are you giving me this?" He asked roughly. "You don't even like me."_

_"Lloyd loves you," Danielle had answered. Her eyes were empty of any reaction, something that Damon didn't like looking at, no matter how pretty she could be. "That is enough for me to extend my protection services to you the best I can."_

_Damon hadn't known how to respond, so he'd quickly plucked off the rubber stopper, tilted back the vial, and let the bitter liquid slither down his throat and singe his stomach. He'd felt a burn in his skin that hadn't been there before, a tightness to his veins and a controlled heartbeat. The potion had been working—but was the potion actually really enough to do what it was supposed to do?_

_..._

Damon gasped and opened his eyes.

A soft drizzle of rain still wept from the sky. God's tears hadn't ceased since Damon had gotten shot in the stomach. Faintly he could remember that incident, but it didn't feel like it was reality, just a bad dream he'd had after falling asleep in bed. However, he didn't find that he was asleep against a mattress, but rather the cold, wet tar pavement of the parking lot outside of the Ninjago City museum. Voices surrounded him—voices saying things that sounded awfully gruff as of a police officer. Damon turned his cheek to the pavement. Around him was a white shape outlining his body. It was the kind of tape that police used to mark where a dead body once laid. He gasped again. He sat up. He gazed around. He was shocked.

Police. Uniforms were _everywhere. _Surrounding him, consuming him, making him claustrophobic. Some were talking to normally dressed people. Police cars blocked every entrance, manned yellow police tape strapped around a wide square in the pavilion, an ambulance parked nearby. Some were bent down, touching the earth as they filed down for blood. Others interviewed.

Someone screamed.

"HE'S ALIVE!"

Damon looked towards a woman, covering her mouth and pointing. All eyes turned to him. Gasps, shouts, cries screwed the air.

_Oh, shit. _

They thought Damon Garmadon was dead. But thanks to Danielle's potion, he was completely alive.

Aw, shit.

Damon was supposed to be dead. How could he explain now that he was suddenly alive? _I should run, _he thought, and scrabbled to his feet as a few police officers ran towards him, yelling. Damon's heart pounded. Preparing himself to take off, he realized he didn't feel as though he was shocked at all, no numbness to completely remind him he'd been dead, but rather a feeling of alive-ness that came with his reimbursed heartbeat. _Thank you, Danielle, _he said softly. He turned to run.

"_DAD?!"_


	48. Chapter 48

**CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT:  
**Focus

"Lloyd!" Garmadon gasped, and ran towards his son, who was standing idly on the other side of the police tape dividing them. After waking from such a cold place, Damon was glad to have his son there to see, as a first-beauty or something, a makeup for tragedy. His son's outstretched arms gave way into the hug that his father enveloped him in. It was easy to ignore the police behind him, because in his arms was his son, someone that Damon loved more than anything in this world. He braced his arms around his boy's thin waist. Surprisingly, Lloyd's abdomen felt tighter than usual. Why was that?

"Dad…" Lloyd said. He sounded exactly like he had when Garmadon had hugged him after Kai saved him from the Serpentine. Lloyd pulled back, not the young baby son he'd seen that other day, but rather a grown man. He was proud to name this boy his son. He watched Lloyd's blue eyes water over. "I'm so glad you're okay. They said you were dead, and I—"

"GARMADON!" yelled an officer. Damon turned, curled his lip for theatrics, and snapped at him.

"Stay back. Give me a minute, fools. It's tough work coming back from the dead, you know," he growled. Even though he wasn't evil anymore, he rather enjoyed the startled looks on the officers' faces; they weren't expecting that sort of response. From that same detail, they all hung back for a moment longer. Damon happily turned back towards his son, and reached out his hands to caress Lloyd's upper arms. "Go on," he said. _Strange…Lloyd feels…stronger than he did before. _

Lloyd looked down. "How are you alive?" He asked softly. He sounded as though he was battling tears.

"Danielle gave me a potion!"

Lloyd's head snapped up. It was _his _turn to look surprised. "DANIELLE?!" He cried. Damon didn't understand why it was such a shocker to him, since everyone was aware that Danielle was a witch capable of doing those things. "I should've known! Oh, that _insolent _fo_—" _Lloyd's voice cut off. He cleared his throat. But Damon hadn't missed the under-the-breath comment. The Green Ninja never used words so theatric in his own vocabulary. Something was definitely off. Damon's senses were pinpointing the differences already, trying to capture the majority of this, standing back a fraction. He narrowed his eyes.

"Where are the others?" he asked, looking around. "I was sure they were already coming with you."

"They went out to chase the Bizarro," Lloyd answered flatly. He stuck his hands in his jacket pockets. Damon took in the gold logo for _Steel Sherbet, _a heavy-metal screamo band that was highly annoying, on the front of his T-shirt. "They got Mom, so they decided to follow them."

"And why aren't _you _chasing them, son? Your mother…!"

"I was worried about you. I didn't want to leave you behind."

Damon nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. His doubts rose. "Good. I'm sure that Nya came along too, considering she gave birth an hour ago. She's probably right and ready to fight, then?" He laughed to lighten the statement.

"Totally. All fired up and ready to go!" Lloyd nodded enthusiastically. "She was pretty excited about coming along."

Damon reacted quickly. He whirled into a tornado of dark purple Spinjitzu on rejoinder, cutting severely into the canary police tape strapped between two cars, to pluck the imposter off the ground and throw him far across the parking lot. When Damon's feet touched the solid, rain-drenched ground again, he found the fake sprawled underneath a suburban, dragging himself out by the tips of his fingernails. His eyes turned a slick shade of neon green with anger. "YOU'RE NOT MY SON," Damon said, reaching over to a plastic orange cone beside a car and throwing it. It hit the standing phony across the crown of his head, shoving him backwards into the window of the suburban, forcing him to fall again. Damon used Spinjitzu of Dark Lightning to whirl over to him, repelling sliding rain, and pluck the fraud into the air. He remained in control of his Spinjitzu while holding the pretender by the collar of his shirt. "You know how I figured it out?" He spat in the fake-Lloyd's face, watching it bare a row of pointed teeth. "Lloyd _hates _the band _Steel Sherbet." _He tossed the liar again. The creature slammed hard against the brick wall of the museum behind them. He let out no noises of pain, but landed in a heap at the base. "Plus, he would never use the word insolent, and Nya _never _gave birth. You _suck_ at being a stand-in, Kaos."

Kaos, still in Lloyd's form, propped himself up on his hands and knees, wiping a drizzle of blood from the corner of his mouth. He laughed shakily. "I wouldn't expect to hear such a compliment from a dark lord," said the fake with Lloyd's voice. It irritated the hell out of Damon that he was faking being his _son. _He stalked towards him, ready to beat him yet again, but the sounds of the police reacting made him curl his lip again. _Fools! _

"Stop!" They yelled, holding out their guns directly. "PUT YOUR HANDS UP!" Damon glanced at Kaos. The faulty was faking an expression of pain, feigning the inability to hold his own weight as a paramedic ran towards him.

"Please stop him," he begged in a pained tone. Damon's jaw dropped. "He's insane!"

"DON'T LISTEN TO HIM! HE'S A DEMON!" yelled Damon, but the police only put their guns closer to their faces, fixing to shoot if compulsory. They moved around him. Like on the T.V shows that Misako used to watch, they told him to put his hands up where they were visible and lower himself to the ground. Since he was a Garmadon, he did neither, but rather jumped into Spinjitzu again and blew them all away. He was far too fast for their dumb little eyes to see where he was going. Blue uniforms flew everywhere around him, a geyser of on duty workers, all slamming into miscellaneous objects to leave a dent. Damon took his tornado-ability and moved closer to Kaos. He wouldn't let this creature get away with his life. He had him so close—and so _weak!_

"YOU WILL NOT WIN!" Damon yelled, shoving aside the paramedic, who screamed like a sissy child, to grab Kaos again. A steady stream of blood poured out the corner of his mouth. It was easy to beat up someone who looked so similarly like his son because of the pointed teeth and the thick green eyes. The demon bore his teeth again. "Your name may be Kaos, but you've seen nothing of the word yet!"

"CODE RED! CODE RED!"

Damon growled. "I hate law enforcement," he spat, and chucked Kaos aside. The furrowed form crumpled against the slam of a car at the exact same time that police jumped upon Damon, pinning him quickly to the ground and slamming his face to the pavement. He groaned. Cuffs were produced, ready to wrap around him at any second by any of the six-million police officers _dog piling _him—didn't they understand the meaning of _excessive force _and when _not _to use it? "STOP—that man is dangerous! He isn't who you think he is!" he reasoned loudly, feeling his face ground into the rocks stuck in the tar. "He's a demon! He's pretending to be my son! YOU HAVE TO STOP HIM!"

"Tell it to the judge, Garmadon," snapped an officer.

"You don't _understand—" _

"NINJAAAAAAAAAAGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Plenty of "oofs" and "uwaaaaahs" came a moment later, but the weight horrendously pinning the old man to the ground lifted. The sweet sound of punching and kicking filled his ears. Safety surrounded him to the neatest effects—thank goodness the Ninja had arrived! Damon Garmadon didn't think he'd ever been so happy to have them within ten feet of him. The mockery of lost years encased with darkness and Devourer's venom brought the Ninja to deeply despicable regards if talking from a Lord's perspective. One cannot be completely satisfied with being saved by his enemies, if still succumbed to that situation, although Damon was a free man and was able to revel in the fact that he was saved! Hands grabbed at the tough cuffs around his wrists. "I've got you," said the voice of Cole, valiant and strong enough to rip apart the metal. Though the actual cuffs were still around Damon's wrists, Cole separately pried apart the locks, each of the metal bracelets colliding with the ground, followed by the sound of metal _ka-chinks! _Damon rolled onto his back and accepted the white hand outstretched towards him. Zane's. He hadn't thought, with their lack of knowledge on how Spinjitzu works, that they would be allowed to come. Damon didn't care. He grabbed onto the young hand and thankfully pulled himself up.

"Good to see you are still alive, Damon," said Zane, friendly. He blinked with that weird cheerful smile on his face.

"Good to see you came for me," answered the adult. He watched Cole twirl into a thick brown tornado of Spinjitzu and knock aside several officers coming at him. The only three tornados visible were that of Kai, Cole, and Lloyd (the real one, Damon hoped) but he couldn't see, through the fight, Kaos anywhere. He motioned for Zane to follow him out of harm's way. Amid his scene scan, he noted something. "Where's Jay?" He asked Zane. The nindroid-boy opened his mouth.

"KYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Damon watched a blue-clad boy run from behind a car, holding above his head a crowbar. Damon thought that, for a moment, the crowbar was a redundant weapon; after all, he would surely get something awful from assaulting a police officer, until the sickly sight of the crooked, black shapes among the constabularies made Damon's stomach whirl. It appeared that the officers were not fighting the Ninja, but rather these horrifying, warped, ugly black creatures, licking and crawling in shadow-like forms through the crowd. Gunshots that tried to kill only swept through the see-through clots of black. Even the three Ninja, equipped with their elemental powers and Spinjitzu, couldn't seem to land an according blow. When did they get here? Damon gasped. Though he couldn't find Kaos, he could see his race.

"SHADOW DANCERS!" He yelled, watching Cole's head snap towards him. "THEY'RE SHADOW DANCERS!"

Kaos must have called for them. It had been long since Damon had laid an eye on creatures as definably disgusting as these, worse than the Craglings that came with the Underworld's mayhem. The chaos and panic of the large group fight was becoming difficult to watch because of the fact that the good side had no chance against these creatures that literally were made of shadows. Shadow People. The Dancers knew that they had the upper hand, too. It showed in their attacks. _They can hurt the humans, but the humans can't hurt them, _Damon watched happen. The creatures bit and scratched at the police, the Ninja, but not once got their own wound. Laughter came from the winning side.

"_Oy_," Zane sighed. Damon looked at him. He was going to jump in the fight, but wondered why Zane wasn't.

"Why aren't you in there?" he asked.

"I don't like fighting." The boy sighed. "It makes me queasy. But if it is for my brothers, then I must." He looked around for a moment, searching for a convenient weapon, until he found a discarded gun lying on the ground. It awkwardly cradled in Zane's hand. "I suppose…" He took a deep breath. Then, unwaiting for Damon, he yelled, "FOR THE HORDE!" and charged into the writhing mass of winners and losers.

Damon's jaw dropped. What an odd fellow. But Damon had to admit, he liked him.

...

_"WHY CAN'T I HIT THEM?!" _yelled Cole from Jay's side. When the lightning ninja looked over, he found his vampiric friend swinging his fists like there was no cake left in the world, but not once did they effect the shadows taking big chomps out of his legs. He kicked them, but that only made them laugh.

What was the _matter _with these things? Jay swung with his crowbar. He'd found it sitting in the back of a van that he'd broken into, looking for something useful enough to help. He initially wasn't even supposed to come with Kai, Lloyd, and Cole, much less bring Zane, but the two had insisted and followed anyway. Jay was in for the fight, but Zane much more reluctant to the cause. He slammed his crowbar hard on the tar until a literal spark came from the impact. It jostled his hands and vibrated so badly that it left his body tingling—but in a strangely good way. He swung his arms. "KYYYYYAAAA!" He yelled with his lame battle cry. "BACK, YOU BEASTIES! BACK, I SAY, BE GONE WITH YOU!"

"Aw, this is just like fighting Lord Garmadon again!" yelled Kai. Fire ignited in his hands, but throwing it at the ground did nothing but make a fluff of smoke fly into Jay's face. He coughed like the dickens. "But this time, _these _shadows can actually hurt me!"

"GET OFF OF MY LEG!" Cole's face turned into its normal offensive vampire snarl, hissing in the shadowy face of the shadow form hanging onto his leg. Jay squinted. It was making a weird motion with its—"GROSS! OH, GROSS!" Cole kicked. Kicked, kicked, kicked. Jay had to admit, it was disgusting, but holy casserole, it was hilarious. He burst into laughter and merrily swung his crowbar.

"Looks like you've made a new friend, Cole!" Jay laughed. It was funny until he got bit in the ankle. "HEY! OW!"

"This is impossible!" Lloyd yelled. Out of his hands, a shot of white ice appeared. He dodged a swiping claw from a shadow. Jay watched him move gracefully. _I should've paid more attention in class! _He thought, moving as clumsily as a linebacker away from other shadows. Never once did he actually DODGE them. More like moved away from one, back into another, get bitten again.

"GET! AWAY! FROM! ME!" Kai's fire only made the creatures shrivel away. They seemed to not be very fond of the light. What did Damon call them? Shadow Stalkers or something? Jay twirled his crowbar in his hands.

"Hey, Kai!" He yelled. "Keep burning your fire! They don't like it!"

Kai moved his torching hands closer to the creatures. They squealed and backed away as far as they could.

"Aww, scared of your own shadow?" Jay taunted, and cackled. He swung his crowbar again. It didn't hit anything, of course, but it was fun to watch them scream and run away from the fire that floated above Kai's palm, and flickered from Lloyd's fingertips. The Shadow Stalkers scrambled over one another, trying to get away. They turned into a gigantic mass of disgusting moving parts that looked like when bugs swarmed together. Jay hopped on his feet. "EWWWW they look like beetles!"

Damon's purple tornado knocked aside nothing. A few gunshots went off, but Zane seemed to be having trouble with his gun, so he just swung it around instead. Kai and Lloyd managed to make the Stalkers morph into squishy little pieces of nothing, but they were still shadows, and Jay could actually walk right through them. It was freezing cold, like trudging through ice water, across his ankles when venturing across their pile. Jay decided that being chilled to the bone was no longer fun and stayed away from them. Cole hissed and growled, but he wasn't scary. "WE'RE SO HOOPED!" Jay yelled after he felt another unidentified scratch on his leg. So, so hooped.

...

"Your focus," Wu said, sitting softly in the back of the car, holding his staff horizontally across his lap, "is what will make the creatures come at your command. You must maintain an eye on keeping those shadows within your order. If you do not, they will not listen. They come at your call." Ming Montgomery, driving their van into the parking lot of the museum past the tiny crowd watching, parked the car. Wu's students had left under his command, but fairly without their Sensei, unknowing of what was holding back the teacher. He looked at the fight going on overwhelmingly against shadows in the parking lot. Yes, these Dancers were the transparent kind; they weren't fully there. His students seemed to be having a little bit of an issue tending to the defeat of the shadows.

That was simply because they were not cut out to erase them.

Wu turned his head to his secret weapon, sitting beside him, clutching the backseat like it was her lifeline. Seiko stared with a wide single eye at the view out Wu's side window. He'd retrieved her knowing this would be good practice for controlling those shaky powers of hers. After all, she needed to be tamed; at any rate, her choice could upset the balance of Ninjago. Her power was too vast to go uncultivated. He also had to make sure that she was also emotionally intact. If she chose to join evil because of her deep emotions, she would be unstoppable, and ultimately the Ninja would lose the Great Battle. Wu would do whatever was in his power to make sure this girl didn't fall into the wrong hands, while also training her with those powers so they _could _win the Great Battle.

Seiko's eyes were too wide. "I-I can't," she stammered, her head whipping back and forth. "I can't do it."

"As of today, 'can't' is not a real word." Wu shoved open his door. Waiting for her answer was also not a real prospect. Old men like him had a difficult getting out of the car, being robotic or not. Seiko looked at him limply from the inside of the car. Wu bent, looking her deeply into the jay blues of her eyes, demanding her to come without saying anything. Seiko clung to her seatbelt for the last of it. It was hard enough to get her to get _into _the car. It was going to naturally be worse getting her out. She was a fighter. A difficult student. Wu needed his all to train this one.

"I _can't," _she said hopelessly. "I can't _control _it. Every time I let it out or whatever, it's too hard to handle. Too heavy. I-I can't make it _listen _to me!"

"You can." Wu looked over his shoulder. His students were having a difficult time maintaining themselves with the scheming attacks of the Shadow Dancers. He needed to move quickly while opportunity still thrived. He needed to, using his status from the observations he took earlier on her, push her. Pushing her seemed to be the only way to get this girl to react. "Your brother is out there being injured and he cannot fight back. Zane is being torn to pieces, and he cannot fight back. Kai is having a hard time keeping up, and he cannot fight back. Jay is unable to keep his balance, and he cannot fight back. _LLOYD"—_he saw her expression shift a little—"is being wounded, torn down, and he can_not _fight back. You are the only thing that can help them. Are you willing to give them all up, give away their lives, because you 'CAN'T?'"

Seiko's whole body shook. This was a stressful moment. Riding the car here had been full of words and tips from Wu, but Seiko was unable to process all of it. He slammed his staff on the ground powerfully. "_ARE_ YOU?"

...

**~Yin~**

I find that my super tiny-person speed does come in handy. Whether it came from my whole dead-person transformation and added onto my previous ability to fly like the wind beforehand, I wasn't sure, but it was helpful despite the fact that it was accentuating my lack of height. Being short has nothing to do with the responsibility that apparently comes with having freakish, uncontrollable powers, though. I had it set in my mind that I couldn't control the shadows like Wu had insisted I could. I mean, I can _bend _them, but making them move at will was impossible. The two times I'd ever played with the shadows, I had involuntarily and accidentally released a hellion of black shapes that swallowed a shuriken and a refrigerator separately. Neither of those times had I willingly called the Void into my bidding. Wu had his mind set on the fact that I could manipulate the shadows that were apparently assailing Lloyd and the others, but even though I'd jumped out of the cab and ran like you wouldn't believe towards the dispute in the middle of the parking lot, I was afraid. Voices in the back of my mind kept wondering, kept asking, what would happen if I failed? What would happen if I couldn't do it, if my ability to be the only one as savior of the Ninja flunked? If I tried, but couldn't do completely? My only tool sitting pretty in the toolbelt was my "focus." My focus. What the hell is focus, anyway? What does it do? Did I even HAVE any? What if I was born as a defect with no focus? What if we figured that out now, at the last second, and as I failed all the others got chomped up and eaten by shadow creatures? What if I wasn't good enough?

_You need to focus, _said a strange voice in my head. It wasn't mine. _You're worried about what COULD happen. Doubting yourself. You need to keep your mind set on saving the others. The trick to controlling your power is that you believe you can do it. If you believe you can, then you can. _

Aw, jeez. Now I'm the Little Train that Could.

_No, Seiko. _I was shocked at the response. _It isn't a joke. You have to THINK you can harness the powers. You need to look at them and KNOW that when you ask, they'll come right for you. I'm trying to help, here. _

And who, exactly, ARE you, brain?

_I am the Mind's Eye. I am what marks you as a Tonguespeaker as well as a chosen. I am the half of the Yin and Yang, like you. The other half of me belongs with the Yang. I am here to advise you. _

Whatever. You're just a voice in my head. Insane people hear that shit ALL the time. I wrapped the corner of the cars and came upon the scene of the whole spiel, and Wu wasn't kidding his nuts. The Ninja were getting the tar beat out of them by tiny shadows that only reached their knees, but seemed to have the upper hand, by a long shot. I stopped at least twenty feet away from them. Cole was stomping his foot, sending startling shockwaves through the ground, all that wouldn't affect the shadows in the slightest. Jay flailed his limbs like a ragdoll trying to hit one of those creepy suckers. FAILINGLY, mind you. Zane looked like he was going to vomit up his breakfast. Kai looked focused—at least what I think focused looks like—and determined, but it also looked like he knew his ass was getting whooped and he was afraid to admit it. And Lloyd, trying so hard to remain strong, almost completely crumpling under the shadows that tried to scraggle up his body. I clenched my fists.

"Focus," said the old man from behind me. I hadn't heard him come, but probably should've guessed he'd be here eventually. Cole shouted a profanity.

_Hold out your hands in front of you, _said the voice. Even though it was ludicrous to listen, I was already going to anyway, slowly raising my shaky, skinny arms to face my palms towards the throng, elbows slightly bent. _That's it. Now BELIEVE. _

I closed my eyes. _I think I can, I think I can, _I thought.

_NO. That isn't focus. Focus is belief. Kai is focusing. He is focusing because he is thinking that he will be able to do this, and he isn't paying attention to his thoughts that say, "You can't. You can't." Kai believes he can. You need to FEEL the triumph of being able to do it coursing through your body. You need to have that feeling of exuberance light up your heart. You need to feel as though you've already won, and by that you need to imagine how it will be when you DO win. You need to command them to come as though you're telling someone to shut up. _

The voice seemed to have this idea that it knew what it was talking about. I didn't know if I should believe it or not. I mean, it's in MY head, right? Wouldn't that imply that I was the one thinking it, even though I knew that I hadn't thought it?

_You're doubting and losing your focus. Remain your attention on making those shadows come to you. _

Okay, okay. Focus…focus on making those shadows come to me. Imagine what it would be like to "win." To make them come to me. Well…that would be kinda cool. I mean, if they listened, it would be pretty neat. I would have been able to do it, and beat the odds. The odds being that I couldn't. I actually would feel kind of proud because I did something for once. Something _good, _too, which really doesn't happen much.

_That's it. Keep going. _

If I did this—I squeezed my eyes shut—I would feel good. I would feel accomplished. I would feel like I had actually had a purpose, even for a short amount of time, because I did something useful, and something totally not selfish. Everything I do is normally selfish, but this time it would be for someone else. For the Ninja. I could save them for all the times they've saved me and the rest of Ninjago.

_Perfect. Now imagine doing it. _

O-okay…Okay. _You can do this, _I told myself, and took a deep breath. _You can do it. _When I do this, these dumb little creatures will come to my bidding, and they'll stop hurting the others. They'll come over here, and hell, maybe they'll start eating themselves because I told them to! I'll have total control over them, because I will be focused, and focus is my main goal here. I will have the power, the control, to get them over here, and away from the others. They won't tear Cole to shreds anymore, so my brother will live another day. They'll stop hurting the totally innocent Zane, 'cause, like, Zane doesn't need that. He's too nice. And they'll start making Kai win, 'cause he's believing he can and stuff. Since he's believing, he should have the opportunity to have his dreams come true. Or whatever. They will also stop making Jay jump around like a dork. He looks stupid when doing that. Like some sorta geek trying to be a ballerina or something. And Lloyd…they'll stop tearing him down, when I call them, because he doesn't deserve that. He doesn't deserve to be hurt so evilly. I mean, he's done so much for everyone, and everything _he _does is for everyone else, and…and when I call them over here, when those little jackasses get their jackasses moving, I can actually do something back for him for once. I owe him a million and three favors for the times he's saved me. When I do this, I'll only have a million and two to go. Because I _can _do this.

There was a loud _whoosh, _like a giant blanket had been lifted and flapped. A flag making noise as it went in the wind. A minute gale fussed around with my hair, smacking it into my face, and creeping me out for a moment. My eyes flew open.

Oh, my lord.

Oh, my cornbread.

Oh, my.

The battle ceased, leaving the Ninja, Damon, and a few remaining police officers standing, dumbfounded, and staring at the sky. A thick black cloud of writhing masses had lifted off the ground where they had tortured legs, and instead dangled above everyone's head, kicking and making noises, but not even flippin' touching anyone. They just hung there. In midair. Waiting to be commanded again. All eyes turned to me, and people made noises of surprise. I guess I was so quiet they didn't even hear me! Or, they were probably just way too focused on the task at hand to notice. Whatever it was, I was blown away.

I. Freaking. DID IT.

I started grinning like an idiot, and turned my head to Sensei Wu, who stood at my side. He had his staff with him. I expected the small smile escorted by the proud gleam in his eyes, which granted me the satisfaction of knowing that, in the face of telling myself that I couldn't, in spite of having to eat my own words, I _did it. _I did it for once. I ignored my own inner comments and freaking _crushed it. _

If I was a Cupcake, I woulda cried.

But nah. I'm just a badass.

"Tell it to come to you," said Sensei Wu. I looked at him. Could I?

Hell. YEAH. "C'mere!" I said loudly. In my head, I fantasized about the image of the thick black cloud that looked like a storm waiting to happen floating towards me. A moment later, my mental image came to life—with a few tweaks, of course—while I left everyone else drooling in awe. My hands moved with the new course that the fluffy grayish smoke followed. The slight puff of shadows reshaped itself as the Dancers tried to rebel against my command, but like Wu had said on the way over here: _I _was the master of shadows, and _only _I could tell them the final command. It was why the evil side had tried to kidnap me, and would eventually attempt to again. But right now, that wasn't even the slightest of my thought process. The shadows slid towards me. They stopped just above our heads.

I looked to Wu for guidance. The old man had a plan devised clearly in his mind, the skeleton for this whole activity I was now performing, with my supercoolamazingness. "Good. Now, make them disappear."

Ahhhh….wait. What? "How…?"

"Use the Void."

Now, the Void was what I didn't know how to control. I didn't know how I was supposed to make that one come. I looked again to the old man who had the mysterious answers to all my indigenous problems for the help that I so desperately sought. "Turn the shadows into a void." Sensei Wu tilted back his head. "Call upon the darkest extent of your power and make them disappear into themselves."

"Uh." I looked at my hands. Call upon my power. How do I do that?

_You just do. It is like when Lloyd summons his elemental powers. It just happens. _The voice offered me no serious assistance this time. I deflated.

"Ah jeez." I pursed my lips. O come, Void, ye faithful? I tried, but the shadows only hovered. Damn. Okay. Uh. Any of you guys know how to do this, because I don't really…I tried to imagine a Void coming out of this pitiful puff of puffiness, but I couldn't really picture what a Void looks like. I saw it a couple of times with the fridge and shurikens, yet I didn't intentionally do either. I looked at Sensei, who had nothing to offer but an upturned nose and closed eyeballs. Random meditation. Okay. Yeah. Sure. I looked up at the shadows and felt the weight of them start to finally sink in, the feeling that came when normally I tried to use this power. My arms trembled achingly. I was losing my focus. Like a groggy fog falls over your body, when you start to feel tired when it's two in the morning. My knees felt defective.

I looked away from the pile of shadows I was holding up and magically came into contact with a pair of baby blue eyes, watching me curiously. Zane seemed interested in what was happening both around him and in my direction. Would I let him get hurt because I lost my focus and dropped the Dancers?

No. No, I would not.

I felt the fog go away, and I was empowered once again, lifting the weight of the sinful demons shadowing my whole entire being with their clog. I wanted them to go away, more or less because holding up my arms like this was irritating, and I didn't want to sink away again. I just wanted them to go. Just poof, be gone from my presence.

A sucking noise tailgated that. I glanced up in surprise when I saw, in the middle of the horde of ugly, fiend-like phenomenon, something that looked like a tiny little tornado sucking them inwards. My eyeballs probably popped out of my head. The glob started to cave in on itself, completely sucking its way apart, until the flock shrunk as it developed an inner vacuum system and destroyed itself. I watched as the last of the Shadow Dancer throng was sucked into the hole before it closed, dissipated completely, and left the sky empty of their existence and ugliness as if they were never there.

I felt like the life had been sucked right out of me. Exhaustion was overwhelming, making my knees cave and my only means of prop being on my hands and knees, trying to support my weight. I stared at the tar below me. It was wet with residue of past rain. My hands had rocks being stuck into them, and damnit, it hurt bad, but I was shaking with realization.

I did it.

I laughed, reaching up to shakily wipe my nose as I leaned back to sit on my knees, watching as the Ninja started running towards me and the officers practically died from shock right there, if not for the assistance of the paramedics. I didn't believe they were going to be a problem any time soon 'cause of that. So I'd eliminated _two _issues. I looked up with a weak smile at Cole. He happily reached me first. I feel like somebody just ripped out my brain and replaced it with crud, like dumped a crapload of jelly in my skull, and sealed it tight or something. I rubbed my eyes. "WOW! THAT WAS SO COOL! HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!" yelled Jay, finding me next. Cole reached down a hand to help me to my feet.

"That was amazing!" Zane said. He smiled at me as Cole picked me up in a giant hug and, uncharacteristically, twirled me in a circle. I clung to him and made absolutely no comment about the fact that spinning me would make me vomit all over his shirt (which I did not do.) He set me on the pavement. Since I'm just that weird, I almost fell back over, had he not reached out a hand to steady me on the shoulder.

"Whoa, there, sister! High off accomplishment?" He grinned at me. I tiredly smiled back. (Did I mention I did it, by the way?)

"Looks like you're starting to harness your element," Kai commented, giving me a pleased look. I tried not to think it was the coolest thing ever that Kai Smith winked at me after that. "You did pretty good."

I shrugged and shifted my feet. "It's not really an _element…" _As an alternative of finishing, I looked to the golden-haired Lloyd, standing before me with his hands in his pockets and this really goofy grin spread across his face. He looked dumb, which I was going to tell him so, but he reached over and swept me into his arms like it was no big deal (it probably wasn't.) In that weird Yin-Yang way, I calmed under his touch. He made me feel tranquilized. Lloyd lifted me onto his toes, raising little ol' me so I was standing over his sneakers in my slip-on ballet wannabes, my face mashed into his shoulder to inhale the smell of soap and rain. My arms curled around his waist. And my heart skipped a beat.

"Good job," he whispered, his warm breath tickling my ear. "And thanks."

"Ah," I whispered against his shirt, "no, um, problem?"

Too soon, Lloyd let me go, setting me back down on the ground while I marveled. I stumbled back into Damon Garmadon, a silent ghost at most, who put a hand on my tiny head to ruffle my hair. I ducked out of his teasing grip. "Congratulations," he said, but he didn't smile. "But Misako…"

"We will save Misako, and the others," said Wu, capturing the attention of _moi _and the Ninja. I felt Cole grab me and pull me closer to him. I actually had no clue what they were talking about. "But we know nothing about where she has been taken. We must observe first before we can consider running blindly into this. We would be searching through nothing if we began now. We will find Misako, and your parents, Jay," he added to the lightning ninja. I saw him deflate a little. "And we will also find your father, Cole. I do not believe he's dead."

"Dead?" I asked flatly. Cole tugged my hair gently.

"I'll tell you later," he said.

"But for now," continued the empowered Wu, "we must train and prepare the unprepared for what is coming." Pointed glances were thrown at Jay and Zane. "We will keep an eye on this wormhole, and we will stop Kaos from causing any more damage to our home. In the process of that, we will find the others. It is our duty."

...

**~Yang~**

Our car ride home was pretty interesting. After Cole vampire-compelled the police to leave us alone and pretend like we'd never been in the parking lot (it was funny to watch, actually,) we all had to cram into the van that Rikku had driven Cole, Jay, and Zane to the monastery in. Ming, who I hadn't seen since, like, two books ago, was driving, and Sensei gave Dad shotgun. There was a heavy load of awkward silence going on up there. Then Kai, Jay, and Sensei shared the middle seat, since Jay is too chicken to sit in the back and we didn't think Sensei would be able to get out if he sat way back there. That left me, Zane, Cole, and Seiko to fit our proportions back there. Honestly it wasn't too hard; Cole and I took the sides, while Zane sat in the middle because he's a beanpole, and since Seiko was drained from calling upon the Void (Sensei said it was normal for that to happen, since the Void is extremely powerful) she laid across our laps and fell asleep on Cole's chest. Zane kept messing with the hem of her jacket and she slapped his hand about six times, claiming it was tickling her. Then he asked why Seiko's legs were so smooth and why everyone else's were so hairy, which I found really embarrassing for him to say out loud, so Cole and Kai tried to explain to him that girls shaved their legs, but Zane said that Nya's legs are like porcupines because they're so prickly, so it couldn't be true. He also saw the scars on Seiko's leg from when that creature in the Underworld wrote "I will return for you" on her leg. I had to explain that one to him at least four times. He kept asking why it did that to her, and I told him I didn't know about seven times, but he didn't understand. I told him I didn't either, so he looked at me emotionlessly and said, "Well that is not acceptable."

It was weird for me to sit there because I got the tail end of it. Seiko's legs were curled on my lap, white and barefoot, and I didn't have a place to put my hands. Zane just put his on her waist because he's Zane, and he doesn't have that sense of what not to do. He even traced patterns on her sweatshirt out of boredom. A couple of times I saw her open her eyes slightly, look at him, smile, and fall back asleep, like she was humoring him or something.

Kai and Jay got into a discussion about where the Shadow Dancers came from. Jay came up with some really stupid reasons, and even though Cole kept deflecting them from the backseat, he just kept coming up with them. So finally Zane just told him "he was a doofus and should leave it at that." I think Jay bugs Zane sometimes because he's not as logical.

We were almost back to the monastery when Seiko kept rubbing her tiny foot against my chest. I let it go for a while, since I thought she was asleep, until finally I looked over at her and found her awake. She was looking at me, smiling. "Hi, Twinkies," she murmured groggily. I gently put my hand on her foot and pushed it down onto my lap again. A minute later, she fell back asleep.

Finally, when everything was silent, mostly because Zane wasn't asking questions because he was more interested in counting the seams on Seiko's shirt hem, Kai turned in his seat and looked at Seiko for a minute. He looked like he was thinking hard about something. Cole asked him what he was staring at. Kai didn't answer that, but kind of murmured to himself something that everybody else heard. "She's dangerous, isn't she, Sensei?"

Our teacher sighed. "Kaos is just a bump in the road. If we have anything to fear in life, it is her."

Like I said. Interesting.

When we got back, Seiko was only half awake. It was difficult for her to walk up the monastery steps because she was still feeling the aftermath of calling on Void, so I just told her to get on my back, even though she wasn't complaining about anything. By the time we reached the gates she was already asleep on my shoulder again, with her legs wrapped around my stomach, and her arms around my neck. She was easy to carry, since I'd carried her before. My heart was pounding from the way she felt against me.

But let me tell you something. I don't think that she's what I have to fear in life. Because when I walked through those monastery gates and into the sanctuary, I saw Nya. And when she saw me with Seiko wrapped around my body—man.

She was _pissed_.

* * *

**:) I haven't said this in a while, so go have an awesome day/night!**


	49. Chapter 49

**CHAPTER FORTY-NINE:  
**Our Nya, Her Choice  
_~Yang~_

Seiko was still asleep, even as I knew my end was coming when Nya started charging me. Stepping feet first into the monastery of peace, or so is told, only to be confronted by a tiny, pregnant girl who thought I was dating her wasn't the greatest homecoming anyone could think of. I saw fury in her eyes. I didn't really see what the big deal was—I was offering favor in carrying a weakened friend—to her extreme fury. But it didn't take a rocket scientist to know that my demise would soon come. I looked at Kai quickly. This wouldn't end well.

Kai intercepted the raging bull of a sister just before she reached me, wrapping his arms around her and yanking her back quickly from my untimely stupor. Yeah, I was dumbfounded in a really bad position right now. Since thinking about it, I realized this probably looked really bad to her, with another girl on my back and Nya waiting anxiously for my return. My face warmed. Awkward moments like this made my stomach do trapeze acts.

Kai held onto Nya and, with the strength I knew he had, managed to drag her a few feet away while she made angry bubbling noises in her throat. Nya, like I'd been told this morning, had a hard time speaking words that perfectly matched her thoughts. A look of cold anger that I had never seen before in her friendly face made the heart shape morph into a dark queen. I felt bad. I mean, yeah, I was carrying Seiko, but—why on earth was I trying to _explain _myself? This didn't deserve a reason! I wasn't even _dating _Nya! Nor would I ever! It was creepy, because she was, like, five years older than me!

Nya's screamy attempts deflected off of me. Kai tried to wrestle her out of the spasm fit she was throwing. "_Hurt _me!" Nya managed, elbowing Kai viciously in the ribcage. The fire ninja let his grip down just for a second, but Nya took it enough and started running towards me.

Just before I could dodge her, Cole appeared, making her have to skid to a stop. Nya bumped into him. The rockhard of his body forced her momentum into a complete _zero._

I watched Dad and Wu slowly inch out of the scene. This obviously was bland enough to them to see that it was going to be dramatic. "I'll let you sort this out yourselves," said my father, and started for the monastery. _Thanks, Mr. Return From the Dead, _I thought as a last-minute life goodbye.

…

Cole grabbed her wrists before she could even think about offering up a fight, holding them hostage between the unbreakable handcuffs, trying to stop the fit. He should've seen this coming—after all, he had been able to hear the familiar rhythm of Nya's heartbeat in the courtyard as she played with the Samurai. This situation would've been avoidable if Cole had taken Seiko instead of Lloyd. He'd just assumed, like the crappy brother he was, that Seiko was fine since there was no complaining going on. Maybe it was his sister's sign of changing or something, but on normal circumstances, she would've put up a dour fight in who was going to carry her. The reason could be that possibly she was too tired to argue. She _had _dropped unconscious when she'd laid her head on Lloyd's shoulder.

Either way, Cole felt Nya's impassable strength yank him forwards as she tried to rip free. He was surprised at how strong she was. "Leggo a me!" She shouted, and Cole, a moment later, was being hurled onto the ground. His shoulder connected harshly with the rocks underneath them. He grunted with the impact. Somehow, Nya had beat him, making _him, _a vampire, fall victim to _her _strength. Damn. Cole stared at the gray sky without knowing how to comprehend something so completely and totally ironic.

…

Zane looked like he wanted to help before Nya hurled herself at Lloyd, but Jay saw no effort to seize her come from the king of bystanders. Too late, she, including her fat stomach, threw all one-hundred and twenty pounds of Nya Smith at squirmy old Lloyd. Except, where Jay thought she'd just cling to him, she somehow accomplished unclasping Seiko's arms from around Lloyd's throat and digging her nails into the other girl's legs so terribly that Seiko jerked awake with a cry. She lost her grip on the golden-haired boy's neck and fell backwards, utterly insensible to what was happening, towards the stony ground.

_Whoa! _Jay moved. Quick as lightning, the ninja managed to reach her just in time and catch her in mid-fall before Seiko could turn into Humpty Dumpty's final stage on the gravelly earth. His arms wrapped around Seiko's waist, from which he drug her away from Lloyd before standing her onto her feet, unsure of how far was a safe following distance for Nya. It looked to him like Nya didn't even give a rat's tail on whether Seiko was okay or not. She grabbed violently onto Lloyd's shirt and jerked him forward.

Seiko was shaking a little. "What the _hell?" _She gasped. Jay wasn't good at comfort, so he awkwardly gave her a pat on the head. Seiko's eyeballs bulged a little.

Nya shoved Lloyd back. "LLOYD MONTGOMERY GARMADON, YOU'RE A SICK-HEADED FREAK! YOU TWO-TIMING _JERK_!" she shouted, completely comprehendible without a slur to her voice. Jay's jaw dropped. Nya. Speaking actual _words. _Without a stutter or anything. WOW. And…how? Nya had the intellect of a two year old. Nobody learned proper languages _that _quickly. He caught the eyeballs of aghastment on the others surrounding him. Yes, the art of words is rather mythical, isn't it? She'd really been holding back on them. Talk about self-control. The anger must've shocked her out of her gooblygack drabble! It made sense, really, to the queen of the fluffiest personality. Anger her once and you've unleashed the Kraken!

"HOW COULD YOU? WHAT IS GOING THROUGH THAT TINY BRAIN OF YOURS? WHAT MAKES YOU THINK IT'S _OKAY _TO CHEAT ON ME WITH SOME TINY PERSON, ESPECIALLY WITH YOUR BABY IN MY STOMACH? REALLY? ARE YOU THAT THICKHEADED? DID YOU NOT THINK I'D NOTICE EVENTUALLY OR SOMETHING? BECAUSE I'M VERY CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING THINGS, AND I AM ALSO VERY CAPABLE OF KICKING YOUR BUTT, AND DESTROYING YOU COMPLETELY! YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA HOW RUDE IT IS TO HOLD ANOTHER GIRL THAT WAY WHEN YOU'RE ALREADY _WITH _SOMEONE!"

Lloyd seemed at a loss for words. Jay, being the impressed kind of guy he was, thought the way his mouth moved but couldn't form the right words was downright _priceless, _and he was not beyond the kind of guy who laughed at other people's pain. Especially when it came to couple's issues. Nya's cheeks were flushed with anger she didn't feel like holding in, and, in a moment of real passion for the point she was making, she lifted up her hand and swatted Lloyd _clear _across the cheek.

The sound was loud, and _booooyyyyy _that had to _hurt_. Jay wondered what it would be like to be slapped by someone who was usually so calm and quiet. Was it like a blow to the universe because someone just got hit by that tranquil person, or was it like a small earthquake just disrupted the overall aura of Ninjago because Nya just slapped a person? Or maybe it was just a big huge _whack _that made a huge crack split through the earth somewhere. OR MAYBE, SOMEWHERE, A UNICORN WAS BEING BORN!

"Yo!" Seiko held up her hands, jumping to Lloyd's defense at the same time that Kai ran towards the reeling Green Ninja. Jay rubbed the back of his neck. This was getting heated, awkward, and freaky way too fast, like time just sucked down seven steroids or something. "What was that for? He didn't _do _anything, for crying out loud!"

Kai helped Lloyd stand straight again. "Nya—!" Jay knew he would be as ready. The fire ninja was organized with a snapback, but Nya whirled with her hands on her hips towards the girl that stood in front of Jay. He frowned. He'd never seen a catfight before, but had a strange feeling he was about to be standing right in between one.

"AND _YOU—_WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, SLOSHING AROUND WITH MY BOYFRIEND, HUH?!" Nya took a step up, not even close to being as mousy as she had been before. If Jay was insane he would've been honestly attracted to her. Kai's arm stretched out. Being a moderator, as Jay was pretty sure Kai was comfortable at doing, but it appeared like his sister was better off at muscle reflexes than him. She was skilled enough to swat him away without even having to make eye contact.

Seiko's hands came up defensively. Nya's nose upturned in a piggy-ish way that made her look slightly adorable when she was mad. Jay resisted a content sigh. "Uh, _whoa, _I am _not _'sloshing around' with your boyfriend—"

From a large speaker somewhere, Sensei's loud voice came from nowhere, startling everyone out of their pants. "Nya, that's _enough." _He had to be watching from the monastery somewhere. Jay's heart thundered with the total coronary portion of Wu's advice from beyond. Which could've been a crime or committer at that point, to give Cole and Kai a reason to relax. Jay watched Kai tenderly stroke Lloyd's cheek for just a small moment. An angry red welt shimmied up to the surface of Lloyd's skin where Nya slapped him a good one. The hitter now turned to look towards the monastery putting a damper on the catfight Jay wanted to see. He would've pouted. Wu's voice returned to the speaker. "Unrightfully do you return to physical destruction to answer your problems. Foolish for a combative choice." Reprimanding her with words that even Jay had a hard time understanding.

As if for assistance, Nya looked at Jay.

Jay was always the kind of guy who had a soft side—Zane and Cole teased him about it a lot, back in the old days before Kai had shown up to destroy their peace—and found it easy to get a little caught up in the more sensitive parts of life. A lot of times, he found himself alone with Nya when Cole was busy trying to adhere his lifestyle into the dance routine that Lou the Moustache Man had tried to apply him to, and Zane was being hindered useless by infatuation with the magic of the cookie sheets that Edna showed him. It was hard to come up with an actual conversation with Nya before because she had such a hard time with words, but even when she could only make coos at him, Jay felt like he understood her. Like that even with no voice, there were words. They both kind of hovered on the same wavelength when they were together. They would lay there for hours sometimes, most of the time on her bed because Nya was uncomfortable moving about the house, a place full of people and lessons and cookie sheets and music that was nice to escape sometimes. She listened to the things he talked about, which revolved a lot around just _things _in general. The geniousness of the guy who had invented the grandfather clock sitting in Misako's living room. The guy who was dumb enough to write a popular children's comic, "The Amazing Arachnid Man" and manage to slip off over a bazillion dollars from how famous it was. What kind of lame comic _they _could write to make just as much money off of. The life of the number pi. Just things like that. He'd talk, and Nya would seem to understand. Then she'd talk, and even though it wasn't usually real words, Jay understood everything. She made sense to him when to everyone else she was clueless.

He felt like defending Nya was the right thing. Jay cleared his throat. "Well, it was, uh, kind of unfair for Lloyd to be carrying another girl while he's with, you know, Nya." He felt all eyes turn to him, and that wasn't fun to be looked at by all eyeballs, so he looked at the ground. "All men should be devoted to the girl they're with. They deserve to be treated with that respect."

Nya met Jay's eyes as he peeked at her. They exchanged nervous smiles.

"Oh, for the love of—" Cole's irritated voice came with him slapping his face into his palm. Something in the air shifted. No longer were they trying to defend Lloyd, but Jay could feel like someone had punched a button and everything was about to change. Kai and Cole bartered some sort of glance that meant something big was about to happen, something that wasn't expected, while the monastery's gates shut behind them.

…

The only thought registering in Cole's mind was: _I can't take this anymore. _

Kai's eyes said the same exact thing that Cole was thinking. This was just too outrageous and painful to the poor Green Ninja to let go on; if Lloyd continued to hit on Cole's younger sister while resting under the imposter-life of Nya's boyfriend, then there would be more hell to pay halfway down the road to salvation. Not only that, but Cole was having a hard time standing here and listening for the sweet sounds of lies coming from Nya's mouth. He couldn't take much more of this, no matter how peacefully serene he could give the impression of. He may have a hard shell on the outside, but it was always on the inside that held all the raw mixtures no one had ever seen, all except for Nya. She had broken through the walls he'd built for himself. Touched his raw heart and felt it beat. Nya was the one who Cole had fallen in love with.

And to watch her give her all to a _kid _made his heart hurt. To believe the child in her stomach, ready to burst out at any moment, was actually LLOYD'S made _Cole_ feel like an idiot.

Even if it hurt for Nya to hear, made her ears bleed because she repudiated to have faith in the truth and didn't understand, Cole needed to say it loud enough for her to hear. He clenched his fists for extra strength. "Nya, I can't listen to this anymore," he said, staring at the ground. "Lloyd isn't the father of your baby. He isn't even _with _you."

"You used to babysit him," said Kai from Cole's side. Cole didn't want to look at her. Couldn't stand seeing her reaction, what the aspect in her eyes might say. He guessed that Kai and Cole had come to a mutual agreement that this couldn't go on any longer. If Nya was going to be mad at anyone, she could be mad at them for revealing the ugly truth to her. Kai continued, "He was a little twerp a year ago that used to sneak into your room and put fake snakes in your shower. He'd put plastic rat shit on your pillow, and you'd actually get into the fit of believing it was real. Hell, the kid was _eleven. _He still is, if not physically. There isn't a way in hell I'd let _him _date you—no offense, Lloyd—when he's so _young. _You might not even remember me at all, but I _am _your brother, and if you'll learn anything from here on out it's that I'm overprotective." Kai let out a sigh. His shoulders visibly drooped. "Nya, I've always wanted what's best for you," he said. "I've always wanted you to get the best out of life, the things I never thought I'd get because I was too busy juggling _Four Weapons _in my hands. I wanted you to go out there and have the life you deserve, you know? Becoming a ninja, for me…it changed things. A lot. And when you became a part of the picture, I got scared. I didn't want you to be at _Four Weapons _all by yourself or whatever you would've done if you didn't come with me and the others, but I also didn't want you to be with me because I was scared that you'd get hurt. Not physically, but emotionally. By one of the guys." Kai gestured to the circle of Ninja around him. "I mean, you were the only girl within seventeen miles of each of them. Some of them could've gotten a little too attached. Besides, you were never really good with guys, even though you seem to charm them all…And knowing leaving you alone wasn't what a good brother would do, I let you come under the risk of _facing _that kind of emotional pressure. I let things develop as they came, and things…grew. I always thought that if I monitored you and the guy you loved, you'd be safe. But I've completely underestimated how strong you are. And with the way you're actually speaking sentences now, I guess you're stronger than ever before, being able to beat a flippin' speech impediment with it." Cole had never heard such a deep confession out of Kai. Normally, he wouldn't accept his faults like he did now. The ninja of earth was impressed. "You're so capable of handling yourself that I was having a really hard time letting go of you. In my mind, you're still my little sister with the fluffy hair who runs around in overalls with grease all over them." Kai smirked, remembering some part of their childhood that Cole was absent from. But then he sighed heavily. "I never should've gotten in the way of your choice. It's all my fault."

There was a brief moment of silence as this crucial soliloquy set in. Cole finally scrounged up the courage to peek at Nya from underneath his thick bangs. He wasn't expecting what she looked like. Among the majorities of this conversation were other jaw-droppers, for sure. She faced her brother, hands clasped over her stomach, with that look in her eyes that was normally associated with _I can't believe you just did that, _but now looked as if to say, _Oh, Kai, you lovable buffoon! I can't believe you just said something so nice to me! _Those words didn't come out of her mouth, however. "'Choice'?" she repeated in a soft, dubious tone. "What choice?"

Kai further had to suck up his pride and speak more about his feelings. Cole felt uncomfortable for him; he _hated_ talking about his feelings. Hearing _Kai _do it just made everything all topsy-turvy. "Your choice to be with the guy you loved. I was way too big of a nosy brother to let you two just have your privacy and fall in love like all other couples do. I kept sticking my ass into your business, and in the end I ended up destroying the bond you had with him. The things I did drove you to do something…else…that gave you…that." He nodded towards Nya's bulging stomach. Cole's face turned red. Nya frowned deeply.

"And if all these apparent memories that _I_ have are somehow magically big fat _lies, _then who the hell am I with, if not Lloyd?" Nya looked angry. And confused. Cole understood the feeling; he was still battling with the fake memories in his head and the real ones in his mind. He _knew _which the real ones were, but it seemed like the others had such realistic potential too. It was all very puzzling.

Kai and Cole had another private moment. Another mutual discussion that did not take the form of words. Do they tell? Do they influence her with that telling? What do they do? How do they say it? Could Cole risk heartbreak again by letting this happen to him—_TWICE?_

If it was for Nya, he supposed, he'd do anything. The words came with a deep inhale that he couldn't stand taking, a leap in time bringing him back to the old thoughts of how this all went down, a slap in the face if be anything at all. Cole stepped forward a little so Nya's attention slipped completely towards him. Showing absolutely no evidence that Cole was really the ninja of earth, solid as rock, his voice flowed softly in a cracked whisper. He hated every second of his words. "Nya," he barely managed. "Lloyd isn't the father of your baby_. I_ am."

You can probably imagine the look on her face, but you can't imagine how it impacted the others. The moment of silence honored the fact that Cole had, for once, said it out loud as if coming to terms with it. Before this, he'd had such a hard time admitting that he was the one who got Nya pregnant. Even in his mind it sounded like a dream and a nightmare all at once. Understanding and accepting something that huge wasn't something that came lightly to ease. Especially for a guy like him who already had such a hard time speaking about his feelings, who hated the thought of expressing himself in any way that related to his emotions, or to the dark past that Cole had once lived. Cole had never really understood who he was. He didn't have a purpose, nor a dime to his name in the sense that made him rich in quality. Before Sensei had come along, he was just a misguided teenager looking for some sort of clue as to who he was. He had ultimately figured everything out afterwards—but if there was anyone who made Cole feel like he knew EXACTLY what came with his name, it was Nya. Being around her had already made everything so flawless, so sensible. Falling in love with her was what anyone would've done. Sleeping with her had been the most perfect night of his life, because for eight hours, Cole had felt like he was _real. _Himself, completely, with nothing on the sidelines. He was a whole man when he was with Nya. It made him feel so horrible and so happy alternatively when hearing that she was pregnant with his kid. At least subsequently once all the drama had disappeared, Cole felt that way. He was excited to be a father. He wanted to carry around his baby girl and watch her grow. Being a father seemed like what Cole was _born _to do—he was responsible enough and happy enough about it. It would've been perfect if Nya was his to keep, too. He just wished that there wasn't _Jay _to have in the picture.

But the Ninja of Lightning was. And to be honest, that's exactly where he needed to be. Even if Cole's heart broke in the process.

Nya's hand covered her mouth. She only brought it away briefly to say, "…_You?" _

Cole's limp smile did nothing for her. "Unfortunately," he said, "I am."

Cole watched a blue figure from the edge of his vision move closer. "Why unfortunately?" he asked, voice strange. Cole looked tiredly at him.

"Because I wasn't her boyfriend."

…

Cole. _Cole _was the father of her baby?

Those words clashed with the thoughts in her mind, at war with the memories that Nya had, but something in the back of her consciousness told her _that _was the truth. It felt…right, somehow, although with the idea came a sense of wrongness. Not "wrongness" as in Cole was lying, but a "wrongness" that ached similarity in type to _We shouldn't be doing this. _Somehow, Nya knew in her mind—no, in her _heart _that this was true. That the memory of being with Lloyd wasn't. Someone had put that there to confuse her, but as Kai said, she was strong enough to push past that. If she tried hard enough, could Nya uncover the WHOLE truth?

Earlier in the car, she'd been watching Cole and felt a strange sense come over her. Like she was missing the big picture. Something deep had been there, and with this new revelation, it suddenly made the point seem honest. But that wasn't the only place Nya had ever felt the weird tug at her stomach and tip-of-her-tongue petulance. She also felt it sometimes when she looked at Jay. Particularly when they used to lay in her bed for hours, talking. All of this drabble was making her concourse brain turn into mush, but she was determined to see this through. The truth was starting to be exposed, barer than a baby's bottom.

So if _Lloyd _wasn't her boyfriend, and _Cole _wasn't her boyfriend… "Then who is?" she asked, rubbing the thick skin on her forehead and swiping her bangs from her eyes. This was becoming devastatingly frustrating to handle. She was trying to look past the Lloyd memories for her own good, but something kept shoving them back into place, like someone didn't want her to remember the truth. Supernovae of headaches were starting to explode underneath her skull. What the boys were telling her WAS true, she knew that much. But accepting it, to her brain, was harder.

_Cole is the father of my baby, _she told herself. It didn't have to take its time to settle in. Nya had already, subliminally, known that, only now was the dirt uncovering the treasure chest underneath, somehow to her expectancy. She didn't feel surprised or anything. She just felt like it made sense. A "FINALLY!" moment. "Oh, DUH, I should've known that!" type of deal. Of course she'd never SAY any of that…

Deep in her heart, she felt some kind of warmth. An _affection _towards Cole that had always been there, making a special appearance now, for his benefit and hers. A fire, burning inside of her and reaching the tips of her toes. It was real. Being _with _him had been real. Nya could feel it.

Cole and Kai once more looked at each other funny. Since this started, they'd been doing that frequently. Were they searching for permission in each other's eyes?

"Nya…" It was Kai's turn again. Nya caught Cole's face cracking underneath pressure. "I always supported you being with your boyfriend, even if it didn't seem like I did. Actually, I loved that you were dating one of my best friends. It meant I knew you were safe. It was a better alternative from some idiot or faggot who thought it was okay to screw with your heart, because I could trust your boyfriend. I still can. He was, in all honesty, perfect for you. Not anything against you, Cole," Kai added, looking nervously at the vampire boy.

The immortal wouldn't look at him. "No, no, I'm in the same boat as you," he admitted.

Kai returned to Nya. She was no longer in the mood for heart-to-heart explanations. "Who was my boyfriend?" She pressed. The answer was right there on Kai's lips. It didn't need to be there, though, because Nya felt it coming. Obviously, if they were dying to decline it was Lloyd, it meant Jay or Zane. Nya wasn't the biggest idiot to know Zane was in love with Dani, rendering her to only one bachelor waiting along the sidelines, someone Nya already knew just fine. She'd spent a lot of time with him, of course. The name spilled from Kai's pink lips in time to the movement of Nya's head towards the man she had dated without knowing. She met his green eyes of abrupt disbelief.

"Jay," softly said her brother of dull roar, "Jay was your boyfriend."

Nya's lips parted. It had always felt right, being around him; they insinuated to click in ways she couldn't connect with the others, even on a level she experienced with Cole. She couldn't feel horrified or disgusted with the idea of being with Jay. Not at all. In ways, Jay understood her better than any of these other yay-hoo's did. Nya embarked on some sort of irrational heartbeat journey where looking at him now, knowing the truth, making her heart slam loudly in her chest. There seemed to be something in Jay's face, too, that reminded her of her own inner feelings. Did Jay understand what it meant? Did Jay have that feeling in his stomach too, the dancing of butterflies skittering off her ribcage and tickling her baby with their fragile wings? Was Jay angry that Cole had slept with Nya and impregnated her with this child? Nya loved the baby with all the attachment she had, but it had to make her boyfriend upset that it wasn't his. She had so many questions to ask. So many things in her mind made and didn't make sense. Nya reached out a quiet hand towards Jay, an offering he took, wrapping his fingers slowly around her own. She glanced at their clasped hands. His fingers were laced through hers, held upright against his body. The look on Jay's face seemed surprising and genuine. He looked like he knew what she felt, was thinking. Begrudgingly they trudged through the fake slosh memoriesto try and reach each other, only to fall into a botch. Nya was desperate not to lose this feeling inside of her._ I was with Jay, _she thought, testing the words to feel her heart race resoundingly more so inside of her. _He was my boyfriend. _Even the words tasted good. Like honeysuckle. She felt his pulse through their pressed palms. _Jay, _she thought. Is this…real?

The intensity in Jay's eyes answered her. _Yes, _it said, _it is. I know it, even if I can't remember it. I know we were together. I know it. _Jay's hand tightened around hers. Nya squeezed back.

She couldn't remember their time together. But she could feel it. She knew it was there because she could feel herself loving Jay from the past, bringing her old self back into the present, sharing the moment now happily with her. Nya didn't know how long they'd been a couple before, how beautiful their relationship was—the details were lost in the mail. But this, this feeling they held onto now, was proof. How could she not have realized this before?

Dully in the background she could hear Kai's voice, once again, but all Nya could see was Jay's green eyes.

"_Now_ do you see why it's so infuriating to see you mooch all over Lloyd and make a fuss over nothing?" Kai said in a huff. "Sorry this isn't the best time to drop a bomb all over you, but it's actually the truth, and I'm tired of watching you live a lie. Like I said, I want what's best for you, and that was _not _what was best for you."

Nya's eyes welled with tears. "Jay," she whispered, her heartbeat filling her ears, "do you feel that…?"

"Yeah," he responded softly. "I feel like…like this is right. Like this is what _should _be happening."

There was a snort from behind them that Nya knew came from Seiko. But she didn't care. All she could see was Jay.

Then she could hear Cole, his voice soft and urging. She never expected him in a million years to say what he was about to.

"Kiss him, Nya."

* * *

**There's a new poll on my profile! Please go check it out! I'd like to hear what you, as fans, want to have! The question? WHO DO YOU WANT NYA TO CHOOSE? Sexy Cole or Fun Jay? XD**

**Burning Fan Question: Do you want Nya to kiss Jay? Or will they wait? **HMMMMMMMMM pondering pondering

**Thanks for being dedicated to NFAN and taking the time to read this! You have no idea how good it makes me feel to know how many people are reading what was just supposed to be a dumb little fanfiction. NFAN has blown up so completely that I am amazed at the response it got. Hearing feedback from you guys and just all the wonderful things you say and how amazing it is to be among fellow Ninjago fans in the digital realm is really one of the greatest experiences ever. I love you all. **

the FIFTIETH CHAPTER OF NFAN book 4 IS COMING UP NEXT! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! Never has an NFAN book reached 50 chapters before! It's a new record! I'll try to make it extra special for you guys as a celebration!

**And on behalf of Ru and Emi, who want to say hello back to all of you who have said greetings to them, I wish you the HAPPIEST DAY/NIGHT EVER! I wish you all well!**

**Thank you so much, you guys. Love, Kairi~~~~**


	50. Chapter 50

**EdgeChronicles01: **I just wanted to say thank you for all your reviews. I always look forward to reading yours. :D They always put a huge smile on my face, and I'm so glad you enjoy reading my series! It means a lot to me that you like it. Also, thank you so much for your NFAN contest entry! It's okay if I use it, right? (All credit would go to you) I mean, it was freaking awesome, and it was straight up well-written and NFAN worthy! I'll let you know when I post the "Prize" on DA, okay? Keep on reading, and thank you very, very much. I adore you. :3 ~Kairi

* * *

**HAPPY FIFTIETH CHAPTER! YAAAYYYYYY! WHOOOOOOOO! Let's celebrate with a POV we haven't seen in a while, huh?**

* * *

**CHAPTER FIFTY:  
**A Call for Help

The dining hall was saturated with deep hues of red, orange, and a sort of macaroni shade, made all out of hand-crafted, personalized gold that Noel had a blacksmith make for him after the Green Ninja and his little bitch destroyed it with her tantrums. The outskirts of the room was trimmed in fine red gold, much like the red gold of his mother's wedding ring. Orange crests that the blacksmith had also forged were pinned to every of the four walls for reminder that this was Noel's castle now. The table was still long and lacking plumpness of visitors. Normally, it was just him sitting at it, but today Silas joined him. For the first time, too, his half-brother could see what he'd done with this dump. He proudly flaunted his new riches with haughtiness.

The table was crowned with fine foods that his brother gladly devoured in starvation. The lights were kept dim to the Shadow Dancer's liking. Noel made sure that all requests were kept fulfilled, a proper houseguest to be appeased by their host, yet also the fact that Noel wanted something from his brother and wanted to keep it as came. Silas' plate filled to the brim with meats, but never the exotic fruits that the Yin had touched. He apparently also learned no table manners, neither from his father nor mother, to Noel's irritation. The fangs in which probably had dug into many a skin sliced through the cooked leg of a baby minotaur, chewing fitfully with his mouth open—at least to lessen the pain, Silas was at the very other end of the table. Both brothers sat on either end of the elegantly equipped platter, but neither said many words. Noel properly grabbed his knife and tong-fork to slice into a small shrivel of centaur meat, much unlike Silas, who used his claws to shove his face into everything.

"So, Eloquim," he addressed Silas by his stage name, hoping to capture his attention quicker than as to call him by his birth-given title, "when were you planning on telling your little followers that if they just let the Ninja kill them, they could soundly return home?" He popped a piece of meat into his mouth. USING HIS TONG-FORKS.

Silas spoke around an annoying chunk of food. "Oh, back down, you fool. I didn't even know until now."

Noel had already known this, but he looked to his plate, nodding for the theatrics of it. He cornered a piece of Giuseppe Caravel Cat with his eating utensils and kindly placed it in his mouth. "I just think it would save them lot of trouble if you just let the Ninja stab you rather than going through the hassle of trying to find that damned Shadow Key and whatnot."

Silas looked at him out the corner of his eye, sticking a leech finger in his mouth. "Sounds like you would prefer they die rather than torture your little Ninja. Are you feeling sympathy for our brother?" he observed.

Noel frowned, clasping his fingers together briefly before returning them to his knife and tong-fork. He hoped the heat on his face didn't show. "No. I'm just lazy. I'd think they'd want to be lazy, too."

"You don't know them." Silas devoured a blood apple in few bites. Then, worsening the situation, he chucked the empty core across the table, forgetting it the instant it left his hands, moving onto a more interesting portion of food. Noel upsettingly watched the core sail through the air and land into the Foxchild Stew in front of his plate. A backsplash spat chunks of Foxchild into his face and dappled his plate with the dead half-kid. He stared at it for a moment, willing himself to breathe out the anger, since getting your way required you to be compliant with those you were going to rob of their services. Noel lightly picked up his napkin. Ignoring the eating sounds from the other end of the table, he dabbed his face where the discarded food chunks had splashed him, then pushed his plate away. So much for a civilized meal…

The golden dining room door was swept open, and in stepped the half-wolf man named Terhrt, a servant to Noel's kingdom. The new King of the Underworld stared at what he carried: A red pillow with a neat, pressed rectangle of paper on it. His clawed feet pressed into the wood floor with loud scraping noises as he moved towards Noel. "Sir," said the wolfman, you have a letter." He held out the pillow for Noel to see the square envelope with his name printed across the middle. He frowned.

"I don't write letters," he said dumbly. "That can't possibly be mine, even if it has my name on it. My calligraphy doesn't even _look _like that!"

Terhrt blinked, widened. "Sir, it's not FROM you, it's TO you."

"Oh. Right. I knew that." There was no name for which he could reply to. Noel stared hard at the creamy envelope for a moment longer. Was Terhrt sure?

A snort came from the end of the table. Noel looked at the brother, half bent over his platter of bloody meats, stuffing it into his mouth as he spoke. "You still are as stupid as you were when I last saw you." He said around a mouthful of heart.

Noel didn't recall that time, but looked to Terhrt, barely asking, _what the hell am I supposed to do with this? _"I don't read," he said flatly of the tiring sport.

Terhrt looked down. "I could read it to you—"

"I don't need your help!" Noel snapped, and snatched the hardened folder from the pillow. Wearing his neatest black leather gloves, he gently pried open the letter given to him, finding a neatly pressed piece of white paper inside. It was handwritten by the sender, all of whom had regularly sloppy handwriting in the human-spoken language. He frowned and tossed aside the unneeded wrapper. "Dear Your Highness, Noel Smith of the Underworld," he read aloud. A cheeky smile came to his face. He raised his eyes to meet Silas' questionable gaze, quite interested to boot, and waggled his brows. "Doesn't that have a nice ring to it?" He asked.

"Get on with it."

"Yeesh. Tough crowd." Noel looked back down at the letter. Instead of reading any more aloud, though, Noel found himself reading silently in shock what came next.

_I am contacting you today out of a common concern of ours. I know you are not aware of who I am, but I would think that you and I almost have similar priorities. It would seem that the Shadow Dancers are becoming a handful on behalf of the Ninja and their allies. _I _know you are familiar with Lord Garmadon, a man whom you ruthlessly attacked many a day ago. He is in full recovery now. You shan't worry about his condition anymore._

Noel's face turned red. How had this stranger known he felt remorse for slicing his teacher with a lethal weapon?

_ This common concern I speak of is on relative to the Shadow Dancers. Neither you nor I are fond of these creatures, even if it seems you horde one within your own home. I would wisely suggest not letting that man into your life, relative or not. He is only trouble. The Dancers are causing something of a mess for me in Ninjago. What I ask for is your assistance, Noel, in obliterating this army of evil. I know you may hold grudges against your brother, Kai, but I ask you to set those aside and join him in ruining this race. I know of the true plans of Kaos the Deadly to act upon you once he has gathered enough power. He plans to overthrow you when he controls with the Shadow Key. I am afraid to say that the Key would also be able to overthrow you as well. There is no power of yours that can completely counter it and allow you a winning chance. I would assume that for this information you would offer your services in return—my brother has spent many a day in the Underworld and has informed me of customs. One piece of information for a service of the receiver, yes? _

_For your inability to cope with the Shadow Dancers existing at all, I see that you are against them returning to the Underworld as well. You don't really want them to come back, do you? I also know that unleashing the Underworld's greatest evils into the Upperworld is not your dream, as it once was your father's. You don't have the same priorities, Noel. I know it as well as you do. You have never wanted—as much as you may have said so and lied about—to set free hell on earth. You merely want to rule the Underworld. Doing just that is hard; imagine having to rule two worlds at once!_

_You must be thinking that killing them would just return them to the Underworld, and by doing that you would just have to deal with them anyway. But with my research, I have found that there is a way to completely destroy a Shadow Dancer from existence. It is in the studies of a very ancient Shadow Dancer who was into understanding how things worked; a scientist, more like. I'm sure you know him by name. It takes a certain extra amount of power, but I know a witch who is willing to help completely destroy the race, and passively where the ingredients to this destructive potion reside._

_ It may take pride swallowing to get you to come to the aide of the Ninja, whom I know you are not fond of, either, but think of it as your own benefit. If you help us destroy the Shadow Dancers, there will be no one trying to open the Gates to the Underworld. Then, you will only have to rule what is underneath the surface. Trust me. Your false plans for "infiltrating the upstairs" are not going to work if you continue to lie about it to Eloquim's face. He will not enjoy the outcome when he realizes that you never had your heart in destroying the Upperworld at all. What do you say, Noel? Will you help the Ninja destroy the Shadow Dancers, those you hate, for good? I know that you're dying to meet your brother, Kai. _

_I eagerly await your reply, Noel. I look forward to doing business with you.  
Sincerely,  
Wu Garmadon._

Noel stared without being able to comprehend the offer on the table. Wu was the all-good brother of Lord Garmadon that his old teacher had talked about in brief. Everything that man had written in this letter was true, from Noel's extreme dislike of Shadow Dancers to his anxiety in ruling a kingdom all by himself. But he didn't know what to do. Obviously bringing the offer to the table with Silas was not an option, for it would surely make his brother throttle him until his last breath left his lungs. To go against his own and help the Ninja—whom Noel had only ever heard of from his father and Lord Garmadon in stories—defeat a race that he really didn't like would be disgraceful _and _appealing. To get rid of the Dancers would be a dream. They were pesky, brainless creatures that Noel didn't want to have to deal with either way. By helping the Ninja defeat them, preventing them from getting that Shadow Key, then he'd never have to see them again. He'd already known there was a way to destroy a Shadow Dancer without chance of reincarnation, yet it seemed an impossible task, especially when dealing with an offer that sounded so heavenly.

But he'd already told Silas that they would go up there and show Kaos who was boss. It was a lie only created to appease his brother into coming to have dinner with Noel. He was just a little brother who wanted his older brother, whom he'd never met before, to come eat in the same room as him. Noel really didn't have the guts to actually face up to Kaos the Deadly, being the King of Hell or not. Noel was still only a little kid. Not even ten. Thanks to the power to change his appearance age-wise, he had morphed himself into a fifteen year old when he was seven to keep away the people who thought that it was okay to laugh at him. But Noel really wasn't ready for this. To take on Kaos with Eloquim at his side WHO HAD ALREADY BEEN DEFEATED.

But the _Ninja…_

It would give Noel the chance to meet Kai, the brother who was more effective in his father's mind. He'd always wanted to. Kai was the better of Noel's two siblings. It would also give him a way to get rid of the Shadow Dancers, leaving him home free. But Noel had _also _already told Silas that he'd help. If he turned his back on him, Silas would surely kill him.

Oh, this was so _confusing…._

_Maybe if I lock Silas in the dungeon, he won't get out, _he thought, putting a finger to his lip thoughtfully. That might work. Keeping Silas locked away while Noel was out would prevent him from causing any trouble with the Kingdom of Death. But that would also mean that Silas would be extremely angry when Noel returned, Shadow Dancer-free. Unless Noel never let him out, of course. _Silas is kind of annoying, and he still treats me as though I am a child. Is he worth keeping around? _Noel bit his lip. He wanted to help this Wu for his own benefit. But that would mean he'd be admitting he was lying to Silas, and that would make him feel crappy.

"HELLO, UNDERWORLD TO IDIOT, ARE YOU IN THERE?" yelled Silas. Noel jumped. He had forgotten the world around him for a moment, especially this daunting half-breed. "Why did you stop reading?"

Noel jumped to his feet without knowing he was. He grabbed Terhrt by the collar around his neck and yanked him forward. "TERHRT!"

"S-sir?" The wolfman shook.

Noel pointed to Silas. "Take him to the Sleeperwhen he's done eating all the food_," _he said. The "Sleeper" was a secret code word that Noel had created, meaning dungeon without those letters. It was mainly for situations like this, when an unwanted was in the castle and needed to be put somewhere he wouldn't bother anyone. Terhrt looked as if he was going to wet himself, but Noel continued. "That will be his _room _for the length of his stay here, until I say otherwise_." _

"My room?" Silas echoed around a mouthful.

"Oh, yes. You'll find it's to your liking."

"ERajhrajdfjieruowekmdeiut."

"Use your manners, beast."

"I _said, _what are you up to?" The Shadow Dancer wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Noel frowned at him. "You get a letter, and now you're acting strange."

"There's an issue in the kingdom that I must tend to immediately." Noel let go of Terhrt's collar, stepping back and stuffing the letter into his shirt, assuring that Silas wouldn't read it. "I will return once my services are complete there."

He sweated bullets through the lie, but Silas rolled his eyes and stuffed his face with more food. "Ah. Trying to be all _kingly_ now, I see. Going to take your job seriously. Well, good luck with that," Silas cocked a black, furry brow-bone and returned to devouring his food.

Noel clenched his fists in relief. Did it work? He turned to Terhrt. "I will return…when I do," he said, and prodded the wolfman. "Until then, I deem Reginald in charge." He spoke of his replacement teacher. Terhrt nodded in understanding.

Noel couldn't believe he'd fooled them. He ran out into the hallway with his boots slamming heavily against the carpet. _I'm going to finally meet Kai, _he thought, and felt his nine-year-old heart begin to thunder a little bit. _I'm going to meet my brother. _But as exciting as it was, Noel felt a pang of doubt in his heart. Maybe Wu had invited him to come help his brother and feed his own advantage by killing the Dancers, but why had Wu even reached out to him in the first place?

_Oh, well, _he thought, pushing through every pair of doors he had to master to get to the exit. _At least I'll get to meet Kai._

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**So we saw** a side of Noel we've never seen before: THE NINE YEAR OLD SIDE! XD He actually sucks at being a King :P

**Burning Fan Question: **I've had some interesting things happen with this question. My friends Terra and Rian actually got into a full-on argument with Emiko about it yesterday, so I decided to make it the BFQ for this chappie. **Who is your favorite NFAN original character, and who is your favorite Ninja? Why? **(The why is optional. maybe y'all can argue with each other like Terra, Rian, and Emi! XD)

**So, my lovelies, go have an AWESOME day/night, and I'll see you right back here next time!**

**Love, Kairi and Ru~~~**


	51. Chapter 51

**CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE:  
**The Compelled, The Samurai, and The Golden Rules

"You never told me you were a daddy," mumbled Seiko into Cole's ear, twisting her fingers around a lock of his dark hair, intertwining them as if linking together their destinies. Though Cole had abandoned her many years ago, she returned ruthlessly for her paybacks against all odds coming from which ways around her. She held her own against the bullies of nature and paternal sides of a family, which didn't stay limited to the glad evasion of the older brother, on Cole's part. Cole hoisted her further onto his back. The gang had already ascended the porch steps of the monastery's rebuilt crest, dominated the Shoji doors, and moved into the mysterious monastery kitchen, quite lacking in zest. It looked the same as it had been in the old monastery eatery, with a long table fitted by benches rather than individual chairs, a corner designated specifically to the art of supporting cupboards nailed to the walls and a stove attached by a few metallic links into the chipped tan paint. Two thin, arched doorways stationed at the far wall and the left wall on either end of the cornered countertops gave way to two separate paths that would lead them deeper into the labyrinth of the monastery. Cole was unimpressed with the lack of TLC on the inner sanctum. He followed in behind Zane's questionably uninterested eye to the kitchen space. (Back then, Zane had mentioned multiple times that he was interested in not withholding the task of giving the kitchen more zest. It was funny to see him repeating that part of his past.) He ducked to fit properly into the _Shoji _without knocking his head against the doorway.

But the room wasn't empty. Cole had figured on his better part that Sensei Wu and the ditching Damon would be positioning themselves lithely on a stationary bench next to the table, but neither of the Garmadon brothers appeared to be present in the room feeding itself with few inhabitants. He found a thin layer of light colored smoke hovering towards the upper area of the ceiling, produced from the pot cooking across the stove. With her brown hair yanked backwards into a messy ponytail, Koemi worked to a dainty rhythm, lulling a soft tune that reminded Cole familiarly of some part of his past. It was a crooked song that had an off-kilter ring to its odd note. It made Cole think of children swinging on a pair of rusted, dilapidated swings without laughter, poised atop an abandoned, lonely hill. He could faintly hear the creaking of the corroded metal chains scraping against the bar acting as a supportive structure, helping them cling to what allowed them to move. He cocked his head to listen, but the name of the song was lost in the mimicry of Seiko humming it in his ear, low and scary. He shivered uncontrollably. _Where have I heard that song before? _He wondered to himself, despite the ugly manor of the creepy tones.

At the table, wrapped in a gentle black, long-sleeved shirt, Bokuyo kicked his tiny feet while in front of him, a plate of wonders spread before him, excessively matching the colorful bowls and pots spread over the wood. Food of all different shapes and sizes was prepared specifically for the humans of the newborn household. Macaroni, tortellini, fruits, vegetables, chicken, pork, beef, soup, "pickled" pickles, opalescent cherries, cobbler, cornbread, baked beans, lo mein, wontons, salad—there was _everything _packed onto the table that would belong to the takeout center downtown in Ninjago City. Every inch of food seared and excreted a soft aroma and a few wisps of steam to pronounce it was fresh from the broiler. Although the room bore an uncanny resemblance to the old monastery kitchen, Cole had never seen so much food packed onto the table with enough room for someone to enjoy eating with comfortable amounts of space. He watched with a pair of raised eyebrows. Bokuyo looked up at the Ninja, gaping in famish, and wavered a muffled hello around a croissant packed into his mouth. Cole scoffed at his sister, giving a low reply to her statement that was unheard by everyone else. "You never told me you were a mommy."

"I didn't _know _I was a mommy," countered his younger sister, unfazed by the manifold categories of meats she saw plattered before them on neon ensembles. The plates, the bowls, every pair of Tupperware and particular tea cups were literally battered with pinks and oranges and blues and yellows, all reminding Cole of the Easter holiday that his family had never partaken in celebrating. It was a frilly assembly that was keen for impressing little children at their birthday party without a theme, but not particularly for grown Ninja who were destined to save the world. Either way, though, he could practically hear the drool rolling off his brother's lips. Cole, however, wasn't hungry for food. He wanted a little something _else. _

Koemi looked over and smiled breathlessly, stirring away at whatever cruel human substance laid hidden inside of the pot. "Hey guys!" She said cheerfully, waving her hands. "You hungry?"

"Did you—" Kai shook his head, probably attempting to ward off all the hungry obsession that took him over, as was done to his brothers. "Did you make all this?"

"_Me?" _Koemi laughed, peering into the pot and resuming her fitful stirring again. She blew hair out of her eyes. "Heavens, no! Leo made this, but he got called down to the bridge, so he left me in charge of stirring the saltwater that Ripsaw needed for his fish. But I'm flattered that you thought that I had the gall to make all this food." She winked, and then took the spoon out of the pot, switching off the burner and setting it aside onto a different burner for the heated one to cool. She wiped her hands on a white towel dangling over the handle attached to the oven door. "Go ahead, sit and eat! There are drinks over here in the fridge"—she pointed to the far wall, where the white machinery hovered—"like juice and stuff, and water in the faucet. Damon will be back shortly. He and Wu had something to talk about in private. Anyway, regarding those _wounds _Wu told me about—I'll go get some bandages. Be right back!" Koemi skipped out of the room, leaving the saltwater to simmer down in the shade of the cupboards.

"Hi, Mommy!" Bokuyo said happily around another piece of bread, stuffing it into his mouth by the fistful without bothering to wipe away the warm butter and crumbs that fell on his shirt and dusted over his face. His plate was full to the brim with things that appeased the little boy's stomach. Cole stared hard at the member of his second-generation Mitsuhide family, the nephew Cole hadn't anticipated he'd know so soon in life, and once again recognized the shapes of his face, his nose and the way his eyes curved. They were wide, but Cole had seen that same shape of eyes not too long ago, before a rapid age change had suddenly taken place out of the blue. It freaked him out.

If his assumptions were correct, did that mean that Seiko, in the future of her long life, would then somehow get pregnant and have a child, even though she specifically said she hated children and wanted nothing to do with the rascals writhing sporadically in the arms of their parents? And, if all else could factor to it, Cole was having a serious Kai issue with this whole acceptance of the future. The hotheaded fire ninja may have come to terms with his sister dating whichever of the two Ninja she strung along—he had already expressed he was Team Jay when it came to who he'd rather see his sister live out the rest of her maternity with—Cole wasn't so forgiving. He wanted Seiko to move on outside of the unpredictable business that came with the hair-brained evils against the forthcoming justice, produced securely and fought by the Ninja themselves. To have her pull a Nya wasn't what he wanted for her. If anything, the last that Cole wanted was for Seiko to even _be _here. But history repeating itself was never something that fared well with him. Couldn't she just be normal or something, outside of this wretched mass of crappy cards dealt to the Ninja's Crusade?

Lloyd, Zane, and Kai took their seats on the long bench across from Bokuyo, who earned a few judgmental looks from the mannerly Ninja of Ice. He grabbed a napkin off the table melodramatically and made a show of spreading the sheet over his lap, but Bokuyo could've shoved his face into the orange dinner plate for all he noticed. Cole chuckled at the annoyed gleam to Zane's eyes. He felt his sister further bury her visage into the crook of his neck. Burrowing away to store herself for the next spring. But he wasn't going to carry her forever. Cole gently maneuvered so that he could deposit her tiny body onto the bench beside Bokuyo, using his knees by bending them and sitting her on her bottom backwards. Seiko gave a groan of protest, but the Ninja of Earth wasn't about to hear it. His throat confined with a dry tap of tightening skin, a reminder that he needed something to sustain himself for the next few hours. He adjusted the collar of his jacket and scratched off the dried blood on his palms. "While you guys do that, I think I'm going to go, ah, you know. It shouldn't take me long." He moved over to the sink, turned on the tap, and ran his hands under the cool water, ridding himself of the souvenirs that came with fighting off Shadow Dancers, good for nothing pieces of evil that existed only to cause issues. His wounds had already healed with his quick vampire skin's reaction. When he turned around, though, he looked at the traded nervous looks between the Ninja and the look of _really _that came from his younger sister's obscurely cocked eyebrow. He frowned. "What?"

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" asked Kai, doing his trademark half frown just for the occasion. Cole fought to ignore the constant ache in his throat. He needed to get something to drink soon—and not water by any means—or he'd begin to choke.

"Well, my only other option is to starve, and I'd rather not." Cole wandered closer, pulling off his torn jacket, dirtied by the attack against the Dancers earlier, and eventually wrapping its conserved warmth around Seiko's shoulders.

"It's a little risky, though," Kai objected, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. The worry overtook the normal cloud of his eyes by an individual mutiny. "I mean, the Dancers could be waiting outside the gates for the instant one of us steps outside of them. It's not a safe option."

Cole rolled his eyes at the attempts. It was nice to know they were looking out for him, but he didn't want to even have so much as a bodyguard stand close to watch him as he drained the blood from some unsuspecting victims prowling the streets. The clock on the stove said it was 6:45, late enough for the creeps to start coming out, the kind that Cole had only recently started feeding on. At least if they lost their lives, it would be a few more lives saved in the process. By eating the rapists and murderers and potentials roaming between, he was also saving the tons of boys and girls that could be harmed and scarred in the process, something that Cole was proud to be able to do. "Look, Kai, I'm glad you're concerned—"

"Why can't you just drink from us tonight?" Zane asked. His brows knitted together. The troubled features to his face were genuine for that of Zane's compilation, something real that couldn't be walked away from. Zane and only Zane could ever produce such a mystified character that made everyone love him, no matter what kind of person you were. He was the only person in the world who could create such concern out of nothing, because in reality, Zane cared about literally everything that existed. Even if that was the case, Cole could never accept an offer like that, especially when it came to being a vampire. Sucking down from one of his friends was a nightmare of his; he didn't want to shammy down on his brothers' veins like water from a tap. He'd never forgive himself to let that ever happen.

"Out of the question," Cole shook his head. "There's no way in hell I'm going to even consider that."

"But letting you leave is dangerous." Zane held out his hand to the side in a gesture significant to conversational movements. "Perhaps you would allow someone with great strength to accompany—"

"NOPE. I'll be _fine." _Cole swerved arguing about this, moving towards the _Shoji _doors without even bothering to communicate more. However, before he could clamp his hand down on the door, though, he felt a hand grab onto the back of his shirt and tug with surprising force. He threw a glance over his shoulder. Zane had a tight grip on the heavy fabric of his shirt, twisting it so that it was wrinkled and cotton in his hands, wearing a childlike defiance on him like a cloak. Zane's eyes narrowed, lower lip poked out, and an upturned nose made Cole almost amused. ALMOST. He glowered at the tight grasp on his black T-shirt. "Let me go, Zane." His tone dropped into all seriousness, but the Ninja of Ice refused.

"I will not let you hurt yourself tonight. You have seen what those monsters did to all of us." Zane gestured to his torn pants in reference. Cole sighed. He needed to leave, but with a stubborn Zane clinging to him, his departure would take longer than expected, unless he used force. Using force against Zane would feel like a crime. "Just take some from me. Enough to get yourself going through the night."

"That would require half the blood you have," Cole told him flatly. "I don't feel like draining you and sticking you in a coma from trauma today. Nothing will happen to me, I promise." Cole turned away again, this time actually grasping the wood of the _Shoji. _Hoping that he'd be released from Zane completely, though, was a stretch far too gone to test his limits. Zane dug in his heels and stomped backwards, trying to yank Cole with him, but failed.

"I _REFUSE _to let you go." Zane shoved his lip outwards further. Kai took a stand, signaling that this was far from over, making Cole sigh a disturbing breath. "Drink a little from all of us, then. We gladly will share. But it is not worth losing you or something—I mean, Cole, you cannot leave."

"Seriously? You're wasting my—" Cole's voice was laid flat by the sudden impact of somebody jumping on him from behind. His first instincts told him that he was being attacked by a massive hug from his little sister, but his assumptions proved wrong when he looked at the scratched hands curl around his neck and bare feet wrap around his hips, clinging immorally to the last string of life as though that was Cole himself. Zane's intentions were bone-shattering and coercive. He was a naïve bastard, but as a human, he was obstinate as hell, unable to be wavered by even the tiniest of bruises. Cole found that it was more difficult to wrench away the handlebars of Zane's thin arms bent around him than it would've been to discontinue a tackle from Seiko, who was far stronger than Zane was—at least in mindset. Cole would give him a _little _bit more credit for that, but he just wouldn't let this due. He struggled to break free from the terror grip of Zane's dominant cuddling.

"I will not let you go! It is too dangerous!"

Cole had to speak through his teeth since ripping apart Zane's vise-like grip was impossible. "Do you know how dangerous it would be to let me feed from you? Zane, that would be _murder." _Their struggle persevered through the corniest moment Cole knew he'd ever spent with Zane, trapped in a deadly hug that could only mean that the vampire would starve being snuggled by a teammate. He howled in frustration. "Zane, let me go. This is weird."

"Promise me you won't leave!" Zane cried. His voice came torn, cracked, on the bridge of tears, about to jump off and submit himself to the awful humiliation of spilling them in front of the others. Cole didn't want to believe Zane was about to cry on account of Cole's final rebuttal to staying and feeding off his friends, so he believed that Zane was just exhausted from all the work done today. He stopped trying to break the stranglehold clenched around his neck and the pair of legs crooked around his waist.

"I won't feed from you."

"YOU'LL DIE OUT THERE!"

To worsen the matter, the doors in front of Cole slid open, revealing Jay and Nya, both standing side by side but not, Cole noticed, touching in any physical matter implicating that they were _together_ together. His heart hurt enough to look at Nya and feel the depth of having to relive breaking his heart again for the third time over her, the emotion washing over him at enough speeds to practically sever him to nothing but ash. Cole's jaw clenched to watch Jay and Nya soak in the scene of Zane hanging on him like a monkey, with red-rimmed eyes almost ready to spill tears, and the expressions of the others behind them. Cole froze. Jay's mouth slid open without the skill to say the words he was thinking. He looked like he had just seen a goat run in, scream comments about cheese, and exit the room doing a ballet performance. Words couldn't describe how confused and mildly freaked out the two of them looked. Cole sighed. This was not explainable.

"Hey," Kai said casually, loping up beside Zane and Cole with a pair of robin's egg blue cups in his hand, acting as though he didn't see what was happening at his flank. Pretending that he was never a part of this, though technically it was the fire ninja who instigated this whole tremor of spiraling events. Cole glared at the back of Kai's black-haired head, burning two holes through the silky strands while Kai passed along either cup to Jay and Nya. "Come in and have a seat! Dinner's all warm," played the hothead. A host, more like, to help them walk _around _the couple's cuddle happening in the doorway. Cole could've baked a fractured egg on the top of his head with the anger he handled towards Zane for holding so securely onto him, snuggling him like an adolescent. Didn't he know that it was reckless to agitate a vampire?

Jay passed Cole with a funny look on his face. The vampire crossed his arms over his chest. "Keep walkin', Sparky, nothing to look at." He sniped. The blue ninja scurried past, taking his seat beside Nya, who'd found her place on the other side of Bokuyo. The little boy muffled a hello through his stuffed mouth.

Cole returned to brawling with Zane's hands, envying how impossibly easy it had been for Nya to unhook Seiko from the same position pressed against Lloyd. He acted like the entertainment for the others to mindlessly stare at, revolving conversation to another place for the hopelessness of watching a lost cause continue at a dead streak. "So," Kai said. "Did you guys kiss, or what?"

Cole could already imagine Jay's face dying itself a beet red. Sadly, he was already distracted by the deadweight attached to his back. "I'M NOT LETTING GO," whispered Zane in his ear. "YOU WILL NOT LEAVE." Cole growled, feeling the expiration of his vocal cords tingle against the fastener of Zane's fists, but it did little to dither the icy boy.

"We decided to wait for a better moment," Nya stated humbly, her voice filling the room. Cole paused to listen. Hearing that made him a little weak-kneed—or maybe that was just Zane's weight. "We thought that being told to kiss isn't the way it should happen."

There were smiling noises happening in the back of the throats of Kai and Lloyd, but it was usually his sister who would do something to make the moment die. She killed just about everything else; why the hell not kill that, too? Cole always found her dreadfully irritating to his senses, especially when she wasn't even supposed to be here. For what reason she remained, he wasn't adoring having to nurture. "Awww. Good for you. Can you knit that onto a throw pillow for me?" Of course, the whole three sentences were lathered in sarcasm, dripping off the consonants and vowels slowly, doctoring into tangy honey dripping from the tip of the bottle it came in. "You guys are so squishy. Cupcakes, actually. You both are. I can already tell. You know what, Jay? I'm going to call you 'Squishy.' And Nya…Well, I've already decided to call you Vanilla Princess. So Sir Squishy tries to court Vanilla Princess, but in the end they both chicken out because they don't want to make out at the moment. HA! I rock."

Cole could hear the confusion on Jay's face. He didn't understand that his sister had a massive issue with assigning names to the people she was affiliated with. "Wait…why am I 'Squishy'?"

"Why does she call me 'Twinkies'?" contradicted Lloyd, throwing up his hands in Cole's peripheral vision. "And 'Snickerdoodles,' and 'Goldy Locks,' and 'Cupcakes,' for that matter."

Jay snorted. "She calls you 'Twinkies'?" He mocked.

"Do _NOT _laugh at me."

There were little bouts of laughter around the dinner table. In Cole's ear, Zane mumbled, "My legs are going numb."

"Then let me go."

"Promise you won't leave, and I will."

Cole didn't say anything. He turned to see everyone filling their plates with disgusting human food, leaving him to awkwardly carry the burden of an ice ninja to his body. Nya peered around Bokuyo at Seiko, who looked timidly bored when meeting the eyes of the girl Cole was crazy about. "Is there a reason why I'm a _Vanilla _Princess?" she asked. Cole knew it was Nya trying to make conversation with Seiko, get to know her better as she once had performed with ten-year-old Lloyd, but that was a dead end with Cole's sister. The Mitsuhide's only female was hopeless.

"Because I think that you're a total Cupcake." At Nya's frown, Seiko picked at a slice of apple with her long, unruly nails, her eyes more narrow and lowered to stare down her nose because of her slightly tilted-back head. Elbows braced on the table, Seiko appeared more interested in carving designs into the skin rather than looking at Nya when she spoke. "You do as you're told, you listen when people are talking to you, you clean up all the messes that your little Ninja make without bitching at all, and basically have never broken a rule as minor as curfew in your life because that would cause you to have a heart attack and you'd feel guilty about it for the rest of your life."

"_Watch_ it, Seiko," he lowly warned, facing her with his white tumor still attached to him. Seiko's eyes fell into a half-lidded regard of question. _Whaddya gonna do about it? _Her lips said without speaking. Cole's lip withered to curl. The tension between siblings was carried out by the aching stare bonds between the two heavy eyes, the vampire versus his insane, annoying little sister who just had to suddenly become a part of his life again. Cole may be dedicated to helping her out, but he couldn't stand that she was here; he was again somehow channeling Kai's old emotions into himself for being unable to accept that his sister was sticking her little ass into his business. Being a Ninja was _Cole's _deal. It was a sport all on its own, a unique activity that was significant and gifted only to her brother because—well, it was _his _thing. Being a Ninja was _his _calling, _his _destiny, _his _purpose. When they were little, Cole may have hogged the attention of their parents, but dammit, Seiko never left her nose out of anything. She was always butting into his business. He never wanted to have friends over because she never left them alone, always coming into their shared bedroom at night (she would sleep with their parents when Cole had friends over, a commodity that ceased when he was thirteen because she was nosier than any kid he'd ever met) and bugging them when they were still up late playing or talking. She'd poke around them, and even when Cole would be walking home from school with his little quartet of friends, there would be Seiko, trudging her little feet after them in her uniform and tiny backpack and trying to become a part of the group. It was always so annoying. They'd get home and he'd tell her off about it, after which she'd go run and cry, because that was all she was good at. She never let Cole have his _own thing. _Being a Ninja was Cole's _own thing, _and having SEIKO here to ruin it wasn't cutting the cake. In a spur of the moment, trapped in his own memories, Cole managed to unhook Zane from around him. The white ninja lightly landed on his feet, mumbling something about being able to feel his toes again, but against all currents of thoughts going through Cole's mind. He took a menacing step towards his sister, pointing at her with his own scope of vitality. He bent down to get closer to her face to make his point clear, so they faced eye-to-eye, sibling-to-sibling. Seiko looked like she was amused with this, but underneath he saw the oppression. "You will _not _speak to Nya in _any _disrespectful ways. No one else here, for that matter. Understood?"

"I dunno, Sparkles," she said. Without taking her eyes from his, Seiko pulled a piece of apple off the larger chunk and stuck it into her mouth, chewing slowly for him to take in. Cole glanced down at her mouth momentarily, leaving the moment behind no later, staring her in the eyes again. "That's going against who I am."

"You're only made of insults, then?" Cole tilted his head, letting the natural side sweep of his black hair fall into place. The demeanor of the room changed. Or, at least, the negative space between the brother and sister.

Seiko shrugged like it was nothing. But it wasn't nothing. Cole wasn't going to let her insult, of all people, the one girl he loved, to let his little sister ruin this for him, too. He may not be with Nya, but he was still her friend. To risk that chalice between the two, filled to the brim with complicated relationships but a bond somewhere within, all for the sake of keeping his sister here was not worth the perilous battle it may take for someone like him to step into. If Seiko wanted to start fights that couldn't be finished, then there was only one solution he could dispatch for the job. He'd vowed in his past never to do something so controlling, so meddlesome to his younger sister, but in their past, he'd earned the right to at least run a little with his vampire abilities. Cole stared deep into her eyes and called upon the sheer power that being a vampire came with. The Compulsion. It was the mind control, the ability to take over someone's mind and make them do what he wanted, that could sometimes—albeit unusually—make up for the crappy residulence of being a vampire itself. The Compulsion was the best part of being who he was.

The trick to being able to use mind control was believing what you were telling your victim. If you believed it—if you could lie to yourself for that few seconds and this other person—then you had already mastered the art of Compelling someone. He liked to think he was already a professional. Cole stared deep into Seiko's eyes, but she knew him well enough to understand what was happening. He'd already tapped far enough into her mind to quickly coax out some portion of her mentality that refused to break eye contact, as most victims had trouble with. She growled his name, but Cole was already beginning the process he loved, came to familiarize with. "I think you need to learn some manners," he said in a soothing voice. Compulsion also came with a human's inability to refuse the beauty of an immortal. Adding the seductive tang to your voice always made the victim's quicker submission. Seiko's face involuntarily slipped into an impassive state that meant complete dedication to what message he had to deliver. "So, until you learn them, you'll have to follow the runner-up to the golden rule: If you can't say anything _nice…_you don't say anything at all."

Cole broke their ties by standing up. Immediately after eye contact is broken, the victim normally is able to snap out of the submissive-stage, but also has to listen to what they've been told. Seiko stared in shock at her older brother, reaching up to grab at her throat, trying to say ugly things to him through her open mouth but finding no voice coming out. Cole sported a grin. She'd be able to speak—just not the mean things, like the things she was trying to chew at him right now. She jumped to her feet. "WHAT DID YOU DO?!" She yowled. She tried to spit an insult at him, but she couldn't say them. Her throat stopped working just before they came out.

"Until you learn your manners, you can't insult anyone. Not even your reflection," Cole told her. He put his hands on his hips. "Be lucky I didn't Compel you never to speak again."

"You told me you'd never Compel me! Ever!"

"Yeah, well," Cole dusted off his hands of her, ridding himself of even thoughts of her. "We all break the rules every once and a while, don't we?" He threw a glance at the frowning Zane behind him. He didn't bother even saying a fleeting goodbye; a moment later, he used vampire speed (a feature that made him unable to see when moving) to hurl himself quickly out the door and disappear into the falling evening, turning to night.

…

"NUUUUUUUUUU!" Zane cried, running into the door as it slammed quickly shut in his face. The poor guy fell flat on his butt. Disbelief crossed his face at the ultimate betrayal of his friend. Kai hadn't seen the escapade coming, but now thinking about it, Cole would be one to do that anyway. Suggesting he chew on his friends for dinner would've only led to the guy starving, but even at that point, Kai would've known he was safe. "HE RAN AWAY!"

Zane chucked open the door, running into the night after him. Kai jumped to his feet. It wasn't like Cole to do that, actually. It prompted Kai to think of himself, back before Sensei Wu had properly trained him how to be patient. He ran after Zane. Cole could really get hurt out in the real world without the monastery's protective spells around him. The Dancers could be lingering, just waiting for the opportunity as golden as this one to capture a ninja into their own captivity…! _Cole, you idiot, _he thought, jumping through the open, sliding doors after his friends. "Zane?" Kai said, finding the former nindroid perched at the top of the four stairs leading up the porch, staring out into the courtyard. Kai met the visionary of his back.

He skidded to a stop at the other boy's side. There, in the night, was the metallic look of something that Kai had gotten attached to over the months he'd worked as a Ninja, finding a gleaming red and polished shine meeting him with whirring noises of robotic confusion. A slow grin spread across his face. The Samurai, intelligent now with the rehabilitating it had gone through recently, held Cole by his legs upside down, pulling him close to its face while the vampire writhed. The mechanism must've grabbed Cole, seeing him shoot past on his way out, with a little curiosity that came even with being a programmed creature. It was interested in moving him from side to side using the function of his wrist. "PUT ME DOWN!" yelled Cole. The Samurai reached out a large silver metal finger from the other hand to poke his stomach. "HEY!"

Kai put his hands on his hips. "Well, I'll be damned," he said, laughing at the Samurai as it looked at him some more. He bumped a relieved Zane with his shoulder. He seemed to be on the verge of dropping to his knees with the helpful aid that saved Cole from potentially getting killed tonight. "Looks like we were lucky and get to keep him for another day."

Jay, Lloyd, Bokuyo and Nya joined them. Everyone watched with a little interest on their faces. Laughter sang melodies into the setting sunlight, enough to make the Samurai look over and recognize them, giving them a wave that was actually pretty human for a gargantuan robot. Kai waved back with everyone else at the luck. Maybe today hadn't been full of good things, but it was an omen that the Samurai had captured Cole.

Looking over at Nya was an instinct, but he wasn't prepared for the way her face was pinched in pain, as though someone had just gutted her with their fist and was about to do it again. Her hands curled around her pregnant belly. Fingers clenched tight over the oversized fabric of Nya's borrowed shirt, she made dents in the picture of a heart by wrinkling it with her stabbing fingernails. Nya wore a grotesque mask. The pain he saw normally didn't become corporeal on Nya's face, not even in certain situations that his strong sister could honestly say she got hurt within, such as divided in combat or occupied by a falling piano or something. Little beads of sweat began to trickle down her nose, across the race of her temples. Nya quickly brushed a slap of her bangs from her face in time for the sticky substance to tell Kai something was horribly wrong. He stepped in front of her with good intentions but came out with news. "Nya?" He grabbed her by the waist, pulling her a little closer. Now that he was closer, Kai could hear her breathing was coming in short, ragged gasps, little cries of help under a silent call. She looked terrified. Kai hadn't ever seen her look that way. Nya dug her long, manicured nails into the raw flesh of Kai's bicep. It hurt, but Kai didn't care. "What's wrong?"

The others turned their heads now. Jay especially broke into the scene. Their worry surrounded her with care. Nya's eyes fixed on the focal point of Kai's chest. She didn't dare look away, gasping, gleaming her subtle breaths off of actual ones, examples meant to be followed. Kai held onto her upper arms. "Nya! What's going on?"

Nya's face was coated in sweat. She grabbed onto Kai's shirt and yanked him closer, roughly. He listened to her quick, cut gasp, a sharp intake. "KAI!" She cried, looking madly into his eyes. He pushed her hair out of her eyes so it was easier for her to see… "MY WATER BROKE! _KAI_! THE BABY! THE BABY IS COMING!"

* * *

**BURNING FAN QUESTION: Should Nya give Rie to Cole? Or will she keep her and raise her with Jay?**

**Go have an AWESOME day/night!**

**Love, Kairi~~**


	52. Chapter 52

**Wow. This is an intense chapter. /kinda...**

**Love y'all! GO have an awesome day/night!**

* * *

**CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO:  
**Pandemonium Bastion

The room was wall-to-wall paper white, empty, made of a square that could barely fit Lloyd's bedroom back at the Garmadon's manor, and that wasn't saying very much. The room was empty of anything but the plain, blatant color white, as though whoever had built the small room was making some sort of innocuous statement. The small door placed directly across from her taunted her with freedom into the unknown things yonder that very chamber. The ceiling wasn't very high, but it was many inches taller than Misako, far too tall for her to reach even if she wanted to take a risk. It would seem, though, that the captors tormenting her mind with the image of her own husband being gunned down before her were into making sure she didn't have any choices. Not even those as innocent as simple movement. Misako found herself, after waking from a protracted, dreamless sleep, chained to the wall by her wrists bound. Elbows fastened in a ninety-degree angle, the priceless metal cuffs interlocked crushingly around her arms, and thick metal chains to rattle around for the fit of it. Misako's legs, too, were encompassed in similar fashions, although it was apparent that if her hands were free she could walk in a semi-circle around the floor. Her arms were numb with blood loss, and time was far gone. She didn't know how long she had been chained in here—wherever "here" was. Her face was sore, her head was stuffy, her nose was plugged, and her eyes were drenched in the literal downpour of tears she'd unconfined in the back of the Bizarro's van. Misako wasn't sure at which point she'd finally given into sleep, but it had obviously been a nap lengthier than she'd foreseen.

It was harder to feel anything in her heart now, after this tragedy, than it was after she'd stowed away Lloyd at Darkley's boarding school. Leaving him had been hard enough to swallow. This very moment, Misako didn't have anything to look at and find beautiful to make all her pain disappear; once upon a time, that had been Damon, the sight she'd been able to look at. Looking at him made all her troubles disappear. It had made everything fall into place, meeting his cool, calm eyes, watching him with her heart pounding inside of her. Looking at him when he died had made that all wash away…

He was all she could think about, and the grief was just too much. People normally underwent a stage of utter denial. She understood; the unthinkable had just disrupted the forcefield of invincibility you wrapped around yourself. It took others a while to accept that something this catastrophic had happened to them. Misako lived in a world where things that ugly happened on a regular basis, things so painful that came and disappeared at the will of those wielding the darkness. Only a small window of normality had existed in the larger household that Misako had bought herself when accepting Lloyd's fate as the Green Ninja. It seemed now that it suddenly grew wider. It showed her that even if she lived during the most outrageous things ever to commence in human—and nonhuman—history, there were still very mortal, everyday things that would happen. Death seemed to be a constant chill creeping up her spine. A wandering entity that always struck on impulse. Losing Damon was the hardest thing that she would have to ever live through. Misako hung her head. Her shirt was dried with his blood. Her hands were still smeared with it. Her jeans, her ascot, her everything had a piece of him caked to her. Just not a piece of him she rejoiced having. A stray tear ran down her cheek.

_"I see you're awake," _boomed a voice from some corner, emitted through a speaker device that she couldn't see. Misako jumped, rattling the chains attached to her by force. She couldn't locate where the voice had come from, nor could she tell the age of the orator. Although the accent of the speaker was very similar to Pythor's, it wasn't a familiar voice at all. The only thing she could tell was that it was a male. Her heart drummed a little faster with the scare. _"I trust you slept well? You've been out for quite some time, though. My associates and myself were starting to get a little worried about you, Misako dear. Are you hungry?"_

"W-where am I?" she stuttered. For the first time, Misako noticed her throat was dry, causing her once-strong voice to come out hoarse and cracked. She cleared her throat but it only did more wrong to the aching passageway than it did good. Her eyes investigated the corners of the room for a sign of a stratagem, but she couldn't see anything. It was so white, it hurt to look at.

_"Oh, silly me. I forgot to give you the customary introduction! You'll have to excuse me; with my plate full, my memory can be HORRID these days. Welcome to Pandemonium Bastion, Misako! You'll find that your stay here will be lacking in luxury, but it is quite the Headquarters for those who are on my side. You see, I hate to have Ninja Sympathizers inside of my beautiful castle, but I must say, kidnapping you was a relatively functional idea. I'm pleased with the outcome. Either way, Pandemonium Bastion is a very RESPECTABLE environment…meaning I will not have you defy any orders given to you whatsoever. I tolerate to rebellious feelings, Ms. Garmadon. I'm glad you and I are on the same page."_

"I…think you're mistaken," Misako croaked, shifting her bent knees to avoid losing all feeling in those, too. Her head felt heavier than it did before. "I'm not exactly sure what page you're on."

_"My apologies," _said the voice, but Misako could tell there was no sorrow behind the words. _"You're probably confused as to precisely what Pandemonium Bastion is, and why I've brought you here."_

"You could…say that."

_"Since it would seem your collective party is a little late, I'll dawdle in the task of revealing to you a little of your purpose, my dear. I won't be so stupid as to drop every detail of the plot on you, but I'm sure by the end of it you'll have a much better understanding of my intentions. That way, you and I surely will be on the same page. Misako, you are of great importance to me," _said the Pythor-accented voice. Misako blinked her mind out of a foggy sleep, but couldn't expel herself from the feeling. _"It is of similar reasons why you were intentionally important to Eloquim, too. I understand that you have once been fluent in the language of the Shadow Dancers over the course of your lifetime after studying it for six years. Am I correct?" _Without waiting for an answer, the male's voice continued. _"Though you have gotten old and have logically elapsed with being confident in the language itself, I have faith that you still remember a lot of the old structure. There is not a doubt in my mind that you can still read it. Now, if you know where I'm going with this, I would gladly yank you out of this room, threaten you and your son, and tell you to read the Shadow Map I have provided. However, it would seem that the Shadow Map is no longer in Dancer possession, and I am certainly aware of who has their grimy little hands on it, Misako. That would be YOU." _

Misako couldn't help but suck in a quick intake of breath that she knew her captor heard—from whatever room he was—through that speaker he talked to her with. Whoever this was at the moment, whether it be in one form or another, Misako was sure it was Kaos. None of his henchmen would have the privilege to speak so freely, not even to a prisoner. She glared at the ceiling, knowing her face was sticky from her tears and the mascara it drug down with it. Her evil eye had no effect on whomever was watching her _right now, _observing from another room, staring at her without giving her the compassion to look back at them, like a normal human conversation. She felt her stomach clench. Kaos knew she had the map.

When Kai had been arrested from the hospital a month ago, Edna and the other adults had come rushing to find her as she had been doing to them. Recovery from the serum that Caroline had injected into her and the wearoff from the programming errors Caroline had installed into the droids happened soon enough. Misako had, being stuck into the back of the truck that Pythor—mysteriously missing afterwards—and Caroline had dredged into Darkley's parking lot, escaped. She'd wanted to follow the others immediately and make sure that the Ninja were safe, but she'd had to stayed behind to talk to officers and accompany Wu and the other mystified robots in what their next tactic was. At the time she'd finally been able to go to the hospital after her friends, it had been too late. However, Edna had handed her Kai's backpack, which he'd held in nonchalant positions at his feet before the time of the arrest. Inside is where Misako had found the Shadow Map. The Ninja of Fire had been able to snag it from the scene of the crime _before _the police had found it. She'd mentally thanked Kai for being such a clever boy and had stowed it somewhere safe back home, where no one would ever find it.

But now she was being charged on suspicion of possession of a deadly map that this Dancer wanted. She swallowed thickly and tried to knit herself a poker face. Kaos, however, seemed to already have seen the jump in her persona, and gave a laugh through the speaker. "_I know you would never dream of handing it off in a million years," _he said, _"But I must tell you I wasn't present for the original reading of the Shadow Map. I also have better things to do than try to go kidnap the Green Ninja, like Eloquim so humiliatingly failed at. Which is exactly why you're going to have to be my little historian for a while. I'm able to access you quicker than I could your son—much of a time waster, that one is." _There was a rustle on the other end of the phonogram. Misako took the chance of silence into her own hands.

"So you want the same thing Eloquim failed at? To get that key?" Misako asked loudly, glancing around her in despair. "You're going to try and do better at what he flunked?"

There was a low chuckle. _"To open the Gates is not my main goal, Misako, although it is tempting to my army of Dancers. I have other priorities." _

Misako bit her lip. Other priorities? "Like what?" She questioned, but she knew it was a dead end. Kaos was no idiot.

_"I already explained to you that I'm not telling you about my whole plan. All you need to know is that I will hold you hostage until you read that map, so at least that portion of my plot will be discontinued when you comply." _

"But you don't HAVE the map for me to read," she said slowly, testing the air. "And I don't plan on showing you where I've hidden it. You already know my answer. Lloyd is strong; he doesn't need me to protect him anymore. Your threats are worthless against the monastery of peace. You can kill me. I wouldn't read that map even if you _did _have it."

There was another chuckle. Like most villains, Kaos thought this was funny. "_Oh, Misako. I already knew that you wouldn't show me where that map is, but I do know for a fact that you will read it. You have far too much to care about. Killing you now would be a waste of my resources, now wouldn't it?"_

Misako stared at a blank wall. She wouldn't show him. She wouldn't take him anywhere, she wouldn't allow him to read it, she wouldn't let that enigmatic tongue of Dancers roll off hers. When she had hidden the map, she'd looked at it, and she'd known exactly what it said. That was why she'd stuffed it so far deep into its new refuge that it would never be located within hers—or her children's—lifetime.

"It's a lost cause, Kaos. You'll never find it."

_"I pity you, Misako. I really do. You're such a dim creature that I do believe you lack more knowledge than you withhold." _The intercom went silent, and after a moment, Misako could felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. The silence was eerie.

But it didn't last long. The door across from her was kicked wide, slamming backwards against the wall and creating a large earthquake within the room. Misako's chains rattled furiously even after the small disruption stopped. This is what Kaos must've meant by her 'collective party.' She stared in fatigue.

"ALRIGHT let's move it. We're late enough as it is," said Fang, outstepping himself into the room wearing the same clothes he had when he killed Damon. Misako's throat clenched. Behind him, he dragged a long stretcher, complete with bindings to ensure that she wouldn't escape. Misako's throat tightened. Pushing from the backside, his body curved over the stretcher, was Kai's Bizarro, empty-faced and exhausted. His appearance was stunningly doppelganger-ish. The only differences were the green eyes and his forlorn black clothing. It appeared that he, too, liked to down half a bottle of hair gel every morning to make the spiky-haired theme work. He quietly shoved the stretcher into the room, turned it sideways with the help of Fang, and glared at her.

"We finally meet, Misako. It's not a pleasure to see you." His voice, too, was just like Kai's. The similarities between the two different spans of people made Misako's body wrack with shivers. They moved aside the clasps on the stretcher so that they dangled over the edge, providing a long white space for Misako to lay atop of. The perch was oddly condemning. She moved her ankles while the chains cried out.

"The feeling is… mutual…" she groused. Her fingers tingled achingly from the loss of blood. She barely had the ability to command her fingers to wiggle to make sure they were actually still part of her body. Her eyelids fluttered independently; she was finding it hard to keep consciousness under the weight of grief, stress, and the overpowering scent of blood creeping up her nose. There was just too much holding on her plate, and it was starting to get heavy; if she could continue to lift it, there would surely be a guardian angel sitting on her shoulder. Everything was becoming so heavy. Especially for an old historian like herself. She flapped her eyelids again.

"Someone getting a little sleepy?" snickered Fang, reaching towards her left arm to detach it from the cuff. Misako's eyes kept closed, but she could feel her arm fall, deadweight, against her lap. She wanted so badly to reach up and punch him, but she couldn't manage to do so. The blood loss was taking its toll.

After a moment, her other arm was free, as was her ankles. You wouldn't believe how strong the will to fight back was overcoming her body. It was enough to send a woman into a deep concentration to will away her forsaken insides into battle mode, failing horribly when it told her that it was not powered properly for the task. Her body was heavier to her than it was to the Bizarro boys; Misako was then lifted by the strong arms of the supernatural evils carrying her up to her final resting place. Her body was lain flat across the cool, steel surface of the stretcher as it burned at her back. The chill was bad enough, but to add to it, the strange tingling in her bloodless forearms was starting to hurt. Misako's eyes only drifted open for half-seconds at a time. She could feel the boys start to wrap the cuffs over her wrists—but she couldn't fight back. There wasn't the possible capacity to argue a fight which would later conclude in awful missed endings. She felt her whole body drum. No, that wasn't her body; it was the stretcher as it was pushed on wheels from the room, disappearing outwards to the hallway. _If I can just open my eyes, I'll see where I am and find…out…if I can recognize my surroundings, _Misako thought, but when she opened her eyes, all she could see was darkness. What was going on? The motion of the wheeler never ceased, informing her that they were still on the move, but through shadows they traveled? It didn't make sense.

Dizzied through the shadows and faltering through lethargy, Misako's lips parted for voice. The only thing that came from her lips was a bubble of spit rising from her mouth. _I just need some…sleep…_she thought, feeling her lids drift shut. Her cheek pressed against the steel underneath her, transporting her to god-knew-where, enough to put her to…

**…**

"I find this horrendously ridiculous that you think _I _should be the one dealing with this," snapped Maru into his ear. He batted away her face, close to his underneath the cover of a mask, with the back of his hand to make sure that she stayed away from his ears. Maru was not anything like Koemi, always talking off his ear during missions, or rather babbling away while also explaining their position to the enemy—or whomever they were stalking at the moment. In fact, Maru hardly ever said a word when they were out unless something important happened to come up. This was the first time that he'd ever heard her speak a word outside the task at hand—but he wasn't about to make it a tradition. He kept his position against the broken railpost a secret while hers, dangling from the roof of one of the few preserved fair booths, was fairly obvious, if one of those half-minded policemen were to glance over. He didn't look back at her but rather signaled with the flick of his hand. He heard an angry scoff from her perch.

"You're being ridiculous," she continued in a furious whisper, this time remaining atop the cracked roof instead of hanging upside down to flick her tongue at his ear. He clenched his gloved fingers around the broken wood post that had once supported an entire booth before the wreckage caused by the wormhole had attacked. Nightfall was beginning to collapse. At any rate, the police would soon take their cavalry and disappear. Certainly no one would be stupid enough to stay and play long after the sun had gone; by listening in, he'd already gathered that each of the authorities were frightened by the odd blue glow that came off the giant hole in the ground. It was definitely the aftermath of the wormhole itself. He'd seen it happen before back home, a time long before Wu had located him, dragged him by his hair forward in time to this strange era that he was still adjusting to. The wormhole was extremely dangerous. The site could've been radioactive for all he knew. At night, after the sun had disappeared, the hole in the earth that never ended would start to twinkle a shade of deep blue, a sign that there were still subtle remains of the Traveler's Tea still skinned into the wedges of the cracks in the soil. He'd already examined it after the authorities disappeared in the early morning of the day. (It had been around three o'clock when the last of them called it a night. They taped off the viral site with yellow tape—like that would stop invaders from permeating this camp. It was like that cartoon that Bokuyo had once watched on the moving-picture box, about the young girl with the head shaped like an English football. She repeatedly warned a foxlike creature not to go near her precious objects by holding out her hand and demanding that it not swipe her belongings. Somehow, the creature thought that was some form of deflection…if it was here now, seeing the yellow tape wrapped around the sinkhole wrecking the ground and the sure destruction of small wooden buildings, looking as though a tornado had ripped through the area, he would've run immediately at the first sight of the tape. It just wasn't logical. No one stopped trying to rob someone just by being told _not _to. He had told Bokuyo that whatever story he was watching was ridiculous and should therefore be erased from his mind.)

He and Maru's espionage had continued over the course of several hours. They had not slept since the wormhole yesterday and throwing that strange ninja-impersonator into the hole. They hadn't seen him crawl out yet, so maybe that was some sort of sign. He was starting to get a little tired, but failed to fall into sleep's clutches. It was his duty to continue on with this mission until told by the earpiece in his ear to do otherwise. He could hear Maru's deep sigh from above him.

Even before both of them had been captured by the marauder Wu and transported back with him into the future, Maru and he had been designated _kunoichi_ and _shinobi_ partners. They'd grown up together since they were young; trained together until they became professional ninjas; fought together on every battle, every task given; and were both ironically hired for the same employer to protect a very important person. Their designation as trained ninjas had been quite the news in Iga, their place of birth back at home in their _own _time period. He was certain that their disappearance from their important jobs was making its toll on the community. He was frightened, but not enough to distract him from the assignment he was given now. In order to return home into the past, he and Maru had to finish their jobs here. There were still many questions he had for his captor, this Sensei Wu who claimed that he was the bearer of the abilities of four elemental ninja; however, he had yet to meet the students this man constantly battered over. The likelihood of their existence was very slim, in his mind. After all, their actuality only happened in the tales Wu relayed.

Wu had taken them into his interlude with two others who he was in the process of training, much unlike Maru and himself, who came packaged with ninjutzu in their belts. One was the notoriously talkative Koemi Azai from the present, whose last name was quite the moniker back in Iga. It similarly rang to the defeated Nagamasa Azai, collapsed in his own game by Nobunaga Oda… he wondered if there was any relation between the fallen warrior and Koemi herself, but couldn't ask. The second refugee was not from the past, but from the future; Bokuyo Taizo was one child that _he_ found himself enjoying. The boy was definitely something. But the two adolescents definitely were far from becoming skilled ninja in the short period of time that Wu had allotted them; not even double shifts and extra help from Maru would be able to teach them ninjutzu in proper time. It took the two from the past their whole _lives _to master being dedicated _Shinobi. _What made Wu think he could press for time and make two _CHILDREN _learn faster, when the girl was as hair-brained as a rodent and the little boy always chattering about his mother?

He allowed himself to tear his eyes away from the mingling police officers to look up at Maru. She dangled herself, cat-like, over the side of the roof, but not once fell. Her leg swung lazily in the breeze. "I don't like to complain, but I don't want to do this," she said softly, knowing he was watching her. "I was never any good at the seduction portion of my training, Daijiro. You know that."

"I do," Daijiro agreed, flicking his dark eyes back to the falling sun and the constant chirps of the officer's 'radios,' or so Koemi had called them. Daijiro just thought it was strange to see such equipment, coming from someone who was still processing the great change from Iga to…this. Man had definitely evolved from his days of throwing stones. "Think of it as a test to see whether or not you have developed better in that department. All we need is for you to lure that particular man away from the crowd"—he nodded to the suspect they'd been put in charge of monitoring—"so we can interrogate him."

"But doing so would also result in seeking the attention of the other officers," she said. "They would become aware of my presence and surely would notice. Is there not an easier way than to use sex appeal to get a man to follow you?"

Daijiro sighed. "I wish, Maru. But I do not have any other plans."

There was a crackle in his ear. It was that device that Koemi had stuck into their ears, made by the weird people at the monastery, that allowed them to contact their base through this small, barely-visible piece. He rubbed together his hands and lifted a finger to the button inside of it. "Erm…_konnichiwa_?" He said, trying to grab the attention of who was on the line.

"DAIJIRO!"

The _Shinobi _cringed at the loud gasp of Bokuyo's voice in his ear. From above, Maru chuckled. Their equipment was all connected so each wearing them heard the same thing. He tried to slick back his poker face before pressing the button to respond. "Bokuyo, I ask of you not to scream so impulsively in my ear."

"Saweeee!" The little boy giggled. His voice was floundering. "When is Daijiro-sama coming home? Sensei's Ninja have awwived, Dai! An' Auntie Nya-sama is having a baybeeeee! Izzn't dat e'ssiting, Daijiro?"

"_Auntie_ Nya?" Daijiro repeated. He was not familiar with the term 'auntie.' Nor the identity of 'Nya.'

"YEEAAAA!" The little boy cried. Daijiro recoiled again. The piece was jammed into his ear, so close to it that it was starting to hurt when Bokuyo yelled. The fashionable _Shinobi _unclasped one of his shurikens from the wrap around his waist and began to follow the suspect with his eyes, a middle aged man with slicked back hair, a fox face, and bright green eyes. He wore no uniform but unruly street clothes. A red backpack was slung over his shoulder—Daijiro found the color extremely suspicious. The way he was moving around the crowd apparently made those back at the monastery uneasy. "DAI! Mommy izzz awlso here! WHEN ARE YOU COMING HOOMMMMEEEE!"

"I am currently on a mission," Daijiro informed him. "I cannot leave until I—"

"ABOUT 'DAT," said the little boy. His voice cut off the _shinobi's, _but after a moment of silence, the intercom was not picked up by Bokuyo. Daijiro frowned when he heard the lulling voice of Koemi Azai poke through the speaker.

"Hey! So, about that mission—Sensei says to abort."

"Abort?"

"Yeah. You know. Stop what you're doing and return."

"I know what _abort _means," Daijiro said frankly, staring at the subject, who now peered into the wormhole with pursed lips. "But _why _are we aborting? Our eyes are directly on the suspect."

"Sensei just says you'd better get home, like, _now." _

"Why 'like'?" Maru asked from above. Daijiro could hear her voice echoing across itself through his own ear speaker. It was one of the many inconveniences of being within earshot of one another.

"It's just teen slang. You'd never understand," Koemi answered. _No, _Daijiro thought, _I don't think I ever will. _This time frame may have had the luxuries of technology beyond everyone's wildest dreams, but Daijiro was glad he was not from this time. He would find it so difficult to keep up with everything. "Your orders are to abort the mission completely and return immediately. Later strategies will be discussed upon your return."

Daijiro sighed. And just when he thought they were getting somewhere with this subject… He rubbed his forehead before talking again into the earpiece. "Mission abort understood. Commencing return now." After Koemi muttering an affirmative, Daijiro looked up at his lolling partner. She jumped down gracefully to his side without making a sound, exampling a skill that Koemi and Bokuyo couldn't master in just a few weeks. He moved the mask covering the lower half of his face down to his neck so he could breathe fresh air again. "I suppose that's enough on Elomne von Teufel for tonight," he said, eyeing the abnormal suspect from the peripheral vision he had. The man didn't notice his name was being said. "Come, Maru. Let's go before I change my mind about following the old man's orders."

**...**

Elomne stared into the dark abyss and chuckled. _They think they're clever, _he thought, staring into the gaping hole before him. The two dark, black-clad forms of the _Shinobi _disappeared, but their reason still lingered behind them. He watched the emptiness spread before him like a sheet of white paper just _dying _to be written on. _They think that they have all the aces. They'll be surprised to find that they are the ones with the bad deck of cards. _His hands were tightly clasped behind his back. Subsequently exploiting a quick scan that no one was watching him, Elomne raised his hand to press against his _own _earpiece, speaking without some kind of formal starter. "They've left," he said flatly. He awaited a response.

It came quickly. The voice of Kayus filled his ear. "Did they realize you have the pack?" he asked briskly.

"No," Elomne responded, looking into the depth of the hole. "They didn't make a move to get it back."

"Good," Kayus breathed, like it was a weight on _him. _He wasn't the one being stalked by two bounty hunters. "At least now you can bring it back and give it to Kaos. We already have the Garmadon woman; she hasn't agreed yet to read the map, but I can tell you that she'll be reading it soon when you get back. Tell me, where _did _you find that backpack, anyway? Was it hidden in plain sight?"

"No," Elomne said again. He looked up the hill, outlined by the setting sun. "I found it hidden underneath the _Four Weapons _sign on the building. Misako must've thought she was being sneaky, putting it there, but her idea was very unoriginal."

"Tell me about it," Kayus groaned. "She's about as interesting as a box of crackers. Did you check to make sure that the Shadow Map is in Kai's backpack?"

As if proving a point, Elomne hefted the weight of the stolen bag on his shoulder. He'd quadruple-checked to make sure that the Shadow Map was, indeed, inside of the knapsack before drifting too far from the _Four Weapons _shop that the bag was hidden on. Finding it was just too easy. "Yes," Elomne answered, roping his arm through the other strap.

"Good. Now, get your ass back here. Kaos is getting impatient."

"Like the world revolves around him or something?" Elomne turned on his heel and started walking past the officers. Not one of them turned their heads at the citizen walking around on the illicit side of the police tape; the reason for that outlandish glitch was that these phonies couldn't even see him. They sucked at doing their job if they couldn't even pick out an imposter within their own forces. Kaos' powers were extended far enough into helping his 'retriever' in pretending to be one of these policemen; it didn't give reason, though, to why those Shinobi could see past his cloak. He'd have to bring that up later, back at Headquarters. AKA, Pandemonium Bastion.

"It's Kaos. Of _course _this damn world revolves around him," Kayus answered. "Hurry your ass up, Elomne. You're not getting paid to stop and stare."

"I'm not being paid to do anything."

"Your service will be _re_paid when the Gates open, yes?" Kayus _tsk_ed. "I thought you were smart enough to think of that on your own. Either way, I'm not hanging around to be the metaphorically-challenged stress relieving toy of your little relative back here. Just hurry and bring back that map, will you? Time's wasting, and I have things I want completed before Christmas comes around. I want those Ninja dead by the end of this week, and your lack of speed isn't helping."

"Good luck with that." Elomne stepped outside of the police tape. There, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a small sphere that appeared to be a smoke bomb, and threw it against the ground. Like most magicians could only _pretend _to do, Elomne disappeared completely into the smoke to reappear in the main room of Pandemonium Bastion, but this enchanted teleportation ball was crafted out of _real _magic instead of dawdly show time tricks. As the smoke cleared, he waved his hand in front of his face to reduce the earthy smell that came with it.

It was hand-crafted _especially _by none other than their beloved witch, Danielle Juliens.


	53. Chapter 53

****IMPORTANT::: this chapter doesnt have a lot of description because I didn't want to give anything away about anyone's plans, if ya know what i mean. :X Also, when there is conversation, it kind of goes quickly back and forth, like banter. **

* * *

**CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE:  
**The Mistress's Differences

"I don't see why you just can't find another witch to do your 'evil bidding'," Dani said, but she knew that it wouldn't make it any better if they had a different witch at their disposal. It would be much more difficult to monitor what the evil ones were doing if she wasn't in their vicinity. Dani bent back down over the mangled herbs spread across the table in front of her and rustled through the leaves, ground stone, and nature's fruit, all part of a bigger picture that now looked more like something spit out of a lawnmower. The wooden table in front of her was covered with things: tools for grinding up herbs, the useless pieces of vital plants, carcasses of needed apples and other fruits, seeds, animal teeth, claws, torn off wolf paws—everything was crucible to making the spells she cast come to life. In the moment, she was busy squishing up bone dust for a special elixir. She used a small wooden bowl that fit into her palm and a heavy-handled wooden spool that fit perfectly into the shape of the bowl to grind against the bone. It needed to be dust for the rest of this spell to work.

Kaos, disguised as a middle aged man with high cheekbones, shortly cropped curly blonde hair, and dark eyes, paced around the perimeter of the table with his arms clasped behind his back. Danielle used her elbow grease to dig deeper against the skid-bone that was stuck in the bowl. It was hard to tear through the bone of an animal, regardless if it had already been crushed pretty well in the first place. She bit into her lip as she moved back and forth with her body to continue breaking up the bones. "I mean—" she said, voice deep with strain, "don't you have any other magical powers to help you do your dirty work?'

An intolerant smile spread thinly across Kaos's lips. He moved around the side of the table to observe over her shoulder, poking away at what she was doing with his eyes. His slight golden stubble spread across his chin scratched against her cheek as he leaned in to whisper in her ear, "Well, love, I'd think that since _you _were the one who recreated the Bizarro, there wouldn't be any reasonable doubt to go fetch me another witch. They're a hard species to find, you know. I'd rather save myself the trouble and just keep the one I have."

Dani took a deep breath and continued to abuse the bone inside of the bowl, mashing it harshly together with her hand. She turned the grinder every which way to break apart this persistent piece of bone that _just wouldn't break _in vain. She apparently wasn't even strong enough to defeat a piece of _bone. _Danielle expressed a loud grunt of frustration before returning to pounding away at the unbreakable substance.

No, she wasn't afraid to be here. In fact, she was hardly affected at all; finding herself wrapped into Kaos's web of power was more difficult than she had fathomed. She looked down at what little dignity she had left as being the one part of her that could still hold on to what she knew was right, and that, beyond anything else, would always be Kyon. Her son didn't have a clue that she was making all these mistakes, right and left falling into the same bubble of lies that Caroline had. Somehow, even though Danielle hated her sister for making the wrong choices, she found herself stepping on the same stones Care had. As for the robot that Julien had reconstructed, her corpse was probably elsewhere, being used for spare parts or something. She had disproved greatly of her father doing this over and over to Carolyne—it wasn't fair. It had been a generous take that she'd broken apart that robot. Maybe the feeling in her stomach was regret—she didn't know. It felt like she was betraying her father when she turned away the last thing he'd ever built as if Carolyne had been nothing. But the only thing that made her father fix Carolyne into a robot had been his weakening inability to let his favorite daughter go. Danielle knew what was best for her twin, and that was peace, death that was not reprovided from the pits of immortal hell. It was better that way.

"I recreated the Bizarro because that was what you wanted," said Dani. She stopped her punching against the unendurable slice of bone that couldn't be tamed.

"Oh, but it _was _your idea," Kaos said, his Pythor-like accent lisping in her ear. She kept her eyes on the things in front of her rather than falling into that web he was weaving around her. If she didn't get out of it now, she'd be stuck and choked to death by the bloodthirsty spider waiting to handle her end. "I do recall you being the one to suggest it."

Dani shook. Maybe that was true, but—

The door to the white-walled small space was thrown open. It clashed against the wall with a thud. "I'm _bored_." Dani peered over her shoulder at the high-heeled, skinny-jeaned Original waltzing into the room. Her long red hair was again rendered emasculated by a curling iron, and her eyes were bathed in black makeup. Her low-collared shirt toyed with the men she had walked past to get in here. Dani rolled her eyes at the sluttish way that Maya conveyed herself in Pandemonium Bastion.

She hadn't wanted to bring the vampire back here. This was not Maya's place to roam free; Maya had very well represented that she was _not _on Kaos's side, yet he still demanded that she come with Danielle back to the Bastion. It was highly irritating to have someone so petulant in her wake. _Her _castle. Danielle's face twisted grim, turning back to the things she had in front of her, the context of Maya pushed aside.

Maya stopped behind Danielle. The witch sensed the curled grimace she gave at the sight of Kaos's form. "Who the hell are you supposed to be?" she asked, rolling her pretty little black eyes. Dani wanted to vomit.

Kaos flashed that skinned smile again. He nodded slowly. "His name was Nicholas. I haven't seen him since I tore out his throat all those years ago using my bare hands." He sighed dreamily. "I presume he's dead."

"Well aren't _you _the ripper." Maya didn't sound impressed. She dallied up to Dani's hardworking side, examining the table with pursed lips. Her heavy-lashed eyes roved over the display before grabbing a carving tool and picking it into her hands. "What's this?" she asked.

Danielle snatched it from her. "Paws off, Kiko."

Maya's lips turned downwards, her eyebrows raised, in an awestruck face at the other girl's force. "_Me-yow," _she purred, and turned away.

Kaos, taking the form of Nicholas, watched Maya move. It disgusted Danielle. "So I understand," he breathed, "that you're not supportive of my side of things." It wasn't a question. Maya didn't look like she was that surprised to hear that question come up. She continued to walk around the table like Kaos had, fingering the things laying atop it.

"Not really," Maya said ruthlessly. "I'm not into your end of the stick."

"So you would much rather suffer being on the losing end of it."

Maya smiled, her comeback quick. "The losing end just so happens to be the pointy end. If you're not careful with it, you're bound to get stabbed. I might be crazy, but I'm not stupid. I know who will win this."

"Although you seem to be the diabolical type, it looks like your opinion of things must be a little wrong. You seem to have the pointy end confused." Kaos's gaze was pointed directly on Maya, who didn't look intimidated. "You see, to have you on my side would be a privilege—"

"Yeesh. Now you're trying to reel me in with your flattery? Classy till the end, Kaos." Maya rolled her eyes. Her expression quickly turned serious. "Look, as much as I can't _stand _that little princess doppelganger of mine, they have a point."

"Who has a point?" Dani asked without looking up.

Maya swung her face in Dani's direction, giving her a tight smile that was not amused. It must've had something to do with Danielle's façade with the Ninja. "Don't play stupid, witchy-poo. I'd much rather live in a world where there is no Underworld Apocalypse."

"Ahhhhh," Dani nodded, "to do with your serious laws of self-preservation. I get it. Yeah, well, you're stepping into the wrong boat there." She returned to grinding away at the bone.

Maya tilted her head to the side. "It's funny, considering what a help you are to your son. Tell me, are you just that cruel or did you get bored with him already?"

Dani's head snapped up. "No son of mine will be so pure. It's impossible."

"So is that foreshadowing that you're going to kill him?"

Instead of answering, Dani turned her head to the listening Kaos. He was smiling, entertained. "Why isn't she locked up?" she snapped. "Why are you letting her walk free around Pandemonium Bastion?"

"Just a little Southern hospitality, love." Kaos replied.

"I guess it wouldn't be that hard for you to kill your own son," Maya said thoughtfully. It sounded like she was speaking to herself, but Danielle knew better. "You did it once before, didn't you?"

_She's trying to get in my head, _thought the witch. She clenched her jaw together. "It's ironic that you're speaking that way to the daughter of the Original witch," she said through gritted teeth. "Considering my mother is the one who killed all of _your _family—including your own child."

Maya's face flattened out. There, Danielle had struck a raw cord, just waiting to be attacked. "But technically," she said loudly, making a point, "you _aren't _the daughter of the Original witch. The real daughter is lying under a milestone somewhere deep in a graveyard, six feet under. You're just a robotic reconstruction. Am I right?"

Dani finally crushed the piece of bone underneath the wooden mallet, finding the crunch deafening. Her jaw remained tightly clasped. "Not for long," she hissed. She added the bone powder to the bowl sitting in front of her. She started stirring it in with the rest of the small herbs and powders she'd spend forever disintegrating. _"Lepide senescere,_ _per virtutem naturae nascuntur vivos." _She continued to whisper this Latin in low tones, holding her hand directly above the bowl, watching a slow ring of fire start to grow around the rim of the bowl. A slow warmth rose against her hand. _"Reverto ad munscerem." _She'd never casted this spell before. doing it upon herself was just a test run of the real product that it would be used on later, but for now, Danielle was intent on making it happen. She clenched her fist and turned it upwards. She repeated the first Latin statement twice. This was the finale…_"Finis!" _

Dani gasped at the flames. They jumped towards her, prowling across her clothing, consuming her. She let out a scream of pain—the metal, the metal was _melting—_

_…_

Jace skipped down the painted white corridors against that awfully white linoleum, the soles of his shoes clapping generously across the whiteness. White, white, white. That was all this place was. Just a buncha white crap hanging all over the place. In his hands he held the bag that also held the masquerade mask he'd bought especially for the Mistress; he knew that maybe this could've been a bad time, but he had no other spare moments like this one to hand it off to her. She ought to be in her room, like Ash said she'd be—of course she would. She was _always _in there.

He found the white door, seventy-four feet from the beginning of the hallway, and stopped at the sound of silence inside. He rapped his hands three times against the wood. Hopefully, she'd like it; she seemed to be genuinely interested in him, although he had a bad sense of intuition that he'd inherited from that bratty Jay. He didn't know if his senses were trustable or not. He listened for her. "Uh, Mistress?" he called against the door. There was no answer. "It's Jace. I was wondering…"

The door was thrown open, but not by a physical hand. It was the magic. He smiled to himself—she was always the sophisticated one, always using her magic to invite him in rather than her voice. She was probably convex over her table, working on some sort of little brew that would smell disgusting but really work when tested. That's normally what she did—when she was here, anyway. A lot of times, she was gone. But when she returned, Jace always had a few moments of her to himself… except normally romance was off-limits with this woman. He stepped inside.

"Mistress?" he asked. He was cut short when he saw Kaos standing cross-armed by the end of the long table full of the Mistress's things. Then, he saw that redheaded annoying vampire girl that Kaos had told them to let run free, even when it was obvious she couldn't be trusted for as far as she could be thrown. He'd been sure to steer clear of her. Why were they both in the Mistress's workshop? "Where is—?" He began.

She was lying on the floor, smoking, broken. Jace gasped and collapsed to his feet. "MISTRESS!" He yelled, grabbing at the dead, smoldering corpse, pulling her blackened face close to his. "DANIELLE! LOOK AT ME! MISTRESS!" _Oh, no, no no no, no, please no! _

"Hello, Jace."

He froze. Her voice…

She stood behind him, tall and grown, but she wasn't the young girl he'd held in his arms. Instead, she was a woman in her thirties, with more veins visible in her hands and her face a little less perfect. Her blue eyes weren't as bright, and her hair wasn't as golden. She was definitely _not _seventeen anymore. Her body was not as small. Her stomach looked like it had borne the child she'd given, rather than returning back to perfect skinniness. Jace stared in shock. But how could he hold her in his arms while an older version of her stood above him? Had she created a potion to turn her older?

"That mechanical piece of junk is what hid my soul after I died," explained the woman above him, putting a hand on her hip. She wore a simple white T-shirt and white pants, very similar to the color of this stupid white room. Her high heels, though, were black. "It does that with all the robots. It's sickening, but it keeps them there. Now that I've done a spell that releases the soul from capture"—she lifted up her arms and let them drop back to her side, smiling gently—"I've allowed myself to become human again with the body I created out of the bone and burnt child's flesh." She gestured to something on the table. "I've come at the age I would've been if I didn't die."

_So much older than me. _Jace deflated. "W-well done, Mistress," he said quietly, but felt defeated inside. _So much for winning her heart…_

The vampire girl raised an eyebrow. "Congrats. Now you're an old hag. What're you going to tell Lloyd when you sneak back in? You got plastic surgery?"

Danielle shook her head. "No," she said. "I will tell Kyon what I did to myself."

Jace opened his mouth, but a voice came over the invisible intercom. It was Ash's. "Kaos, Elomne has returned," he said, "with the Shadow Map."

"ELOMNE!" Danielle smiled. "My husband! Oh, I must go see him! He'll be so happy!"

_Husband?! _Jace thought. Kaos gave him a knowing look. His cheeks heated. "Well," he said as Danielle wove past Jace, leaving him with her old body and his useless present for her, "won't this be exciting?" He winked at the Bizarro. "Don't look too low down, mate. Red isn't a good color on you."

* * *

**fillie chapper. XD Nah, just kidding. Its a filler chappie. XD **

**So now you know who the Mistress is. *GASP!* Bet ya didn't see that one coming!**

**Go have an awesome day/night!**

**~Kairi**


	54. Chapter 54

**A/n:  
this chapter is the longest chapter I've ever written in NfaN history. 33 pgs worth.**

**I had a really bad day. A lot of you might not like this chapter because of it. No, the quality of the chapter is not bad because of lack of writing skills, it's just the content that you may not be pleased with.**

**Trust me, it's bugging me, too.**

**I wanted to make you have to wait for the next couple of chapters to "watch" Nya give birth. (No I won't colorfully describe every ounce to you. I won't even describe the process. Just what's happening in the infirmary while she's in labor till the time comes.) So...here's this one.**

**NO. HATING. **

**This chapter made me sick to write.**

* * *

**CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR:  
**The First Rule of Truly Living_  
~Yin_

Vanilla Princess was pretty much in killer pain, for as much as I would know about pregnancy. Some person whom I was not the slightest bit familiar with waltzed in, whisked her off her feet, and flew her on a flying pony all the way to the infirmary, where they magically fed her a rhino tranquilizer and spoon-fed her pancakes. The end.

No. That's a lie. Since I can no longer insult the bozos hanging around me anymore, that's the only humor I can come up with. You'll have to bear with me here. This is the _worst _punishment I've ever had. My freedom has been stolen from me by my brother, which is the worst part of this, 'cause Sparkles _promised me _the day he told me he was a vampire that he would never, ever, EVER Compel me to do something, unless it was running from danger or hiding from it. It's the worst feeling in the world to have that promise broken—it's like a form of disrespect, in a way, because something about me was appalling enough to have to force me into doing what he wanted. I've always hated Compulsion. I've never been its fan. But it hurt to know that my brother was willing enough to do that to me—to _force _me with an unfair power—at his own convenience.

You probably don't care, though. Back to Vanilla Princess, because I'm sure she's your main focus at this point…

Vanilla Princess really _was _hauled away by a robot. They came in to the kitchen when Kai, Sparkles, and Squishy followed at her heels, my brother's arm wrapped around one side and Kai's at the other. Like that robot had been waiting or something. It was a dude, with low cropped brown hair that was totally gelled to be all spiny, with brown eyeballs. His voice was all white-lined and flat the whole time he was talkin', being all brooding and … roboty. He went, "Please, follow me to the infirmary; we have a bed awaiting your stature, Ms. Nya." He kind of just guided them towards the door that was across from the front doorsy things, but when Twinkies, Zane, and I tried to follow them, Kai whirled on us and told us to stay behind. I guess going into labor is like some kind of event that you have to be cordially invited to or something. Zane didn't even argue, and Twinkies looked relieved, and I really didn't care if I went in or not. I just know that she was complaining all the way down the hallway until I couldn't hear her anymore. Maybe it's because we're all too young or something. I mean, I know _I _wouldn't want Zane standing there with his big eyeballs and freakishly cheery smile, staring at me with that smile on his face the whole time I'm sitting there giving birth. Like: _Hello, I am staring at you with a happy smile on my face because I am always happy and adore you, even if you look constipated at this point in time. _And plus, Twinks probably isn't digestively inclined to stomach watching a baby being born. It might deprive him of his innocence. I just really am not even bothered by it—maybe if I knew Vanilla Princess better, it would be more important to me. But as it turned out, she tried to crack my head on the rocks outside just a few hours ago, so I'm not that into meeting her at the moment.

That's all I know. Sorry I don't have some kind of omniscient power that lets me tell you every little detail of what's happening in the gizmo. You can sue me later, but I regret nothing. Deal with it.

So here we are. The Cupcake of all Cupcakes has returned, and she's led us out of the kitchen we were condemned to stand in until the labor was over. She walked us out the same door that Sparkles and his gang walked through, but instead of turning to the left like they did, she turned us to the right, leading us down an empty hallway with paint the color of mud and a throwing-up ache in my stomach. I kept my hand spread over the bloated skin underneath the soft t-shirt and followed closely behind Twinkies, Zane, and Cupcake, my tongue bitten against my will. If I could've, I would've just been _spitting _invectives, colorful commentary, right and left, enough words to fill this hallway and make Shakespeare roll over in his grave. I'd be running on a tirade with the voicing of my thoughts, smashing windows with how loud I was yelling—lemme tell you, no one here would be so unspoiled after _I _was done with them. They'd all be rotten eggs, having heard every curse word that had EVER been invented in ANY country. Oh, man, they would be _RUINED._

_But then again, in the end—what good would you be doing yourself? If you could insult, where would you end up? _

I heard that voice again. That one that pops into my head, that sounds like somebody is standing behind me and whispering faintly in my ear. The man nor woman, the girl nor boy, the sucker in between that has a voice that could belong to either. Stopping, I looked over my shoulder. That's how _real _the voice sounded. But there was no one to be had, to jokester to be caught in the act, no one I could uppercut with my fist. It felt like, in the hallway, with Cupcake's voice softly combing through the minimal octaves of a tour guide's voice, there was someone else there. Someone else who knew they were creeping up on me, that same feeling you got when you felt like someone was staring at you, that weird itch-burn on your face. It sounded to me like someone was standing right in front of me, unseen, only allowing me to stare at the empty hallway behind them as their green screen, their backdrop. I felt uncomfortable. Like the music box was playing again…

In my mind, I felt the shivers of someone unseen touching me, prodding their finger against my arm, even though I didn't feel anything against my skin. I jumped back in surprise. Don't ask me how I knew, and I swear to you it's _NOT _just me being paranoid, but something was definitely lingering in the hallway with me, stuck between two worlds as it stared right back at me while I stared right through _it. _I knew whatever it was literally was there. Upright, watching me, maybe laughing, or maybe it was trying to get my attention, I just couldn't hear it. Whatever I knew was there, it wasn't the same as the voice in my ear. I knew that much. There was something…

"Seiko?"

I jumped out of my socks. I whirled around, finding at my other side Twinkies, crookedly concerned. Cupcakes and Zaney-poo (I really need to find a nickname for him) had stopped at the end of the hall, looking at me with upturned noses, some sort of snobbish way of eyeballing me at a distance. Seriously, if you're going to look at me like that, just say what's on your mind. Although, if they did, I wouldn't be able to spit a witty comeback that would therefore ease the tension calibrating the inner sanctum of our acquaintanceships. Trust me, I've already tried. I stuck out my chin instead, finding that defiant movements were still on my to-do list. If that had been part of the Compulsion bargain, I think Cole and I would've had a bit of a tiff, to put it mildly. I could've dumped all the hot sauce I have in my inventory on that one, but as you can presume, I'm unintentionally at a loss for words. "What?" was all I could come up with, but I couldn't shake the feeling that there was still something behind me. I turned my chin a little. Still saw nothing.

"Everything okay?" asked Twinkies, taking a slow step towards me. What, did he think I was standing on top of a giant grenade and the minute he made some kind of teensy tobble, I'd come toppling over and blow up the place? Did he need a painful reminder that my words no longer could carry their usual sharp consistency?

_I wonder if I can still hit people, _I thought. Perhaps I could resort to brutal self-expression if he did any worse. "Whatzittooya, Twinkies?" I threw a quick scan behind my shoulder. Seriously.

He rolled his eyes. "Are we _still _doing this?" he asked, and crossed his arms. Okay, so maybe he wasn't doing ballet on broken glass anymore. But I wasn't going to let on that I was slightly baffled. I lifted my chin higher into the air, with that stomping past his harmless Twinkies concern with my own bare feet slamming to the pavement. There was no way I was going to let on I was not cool with being freaked out by the random floating air happenin' around and in my personal space.

"Let's get your little tour over with, shall we, Cupcakes?" I pulled my shoulders closer to my ears, densing out the evils trying to slide into them. This little municipal community thing they had going on here was about to be blown out by my own blow-off of Twinkies. Yeah, I did get a funky look from Cupcakes, because I had just called her 'Cupcakes' and apparently she wasn't one of those _bright _girls who were able to gather context clues and glue them together with a cheap adhesive. Her doe eyes made me want to run over her with a car. No, a truck. No, a semi. No, a tank. With guns. And spikes on the wheels. It was hard to decide, so I ignored her face completely. What better way to hate her than to shut her out absolutely? She was already bothering me with her blinking. "Well? Let's move it!" I snapped my fingers. At least I could still be snarky.

Cupcakes, after needing a second to herself to somehow gather up my words like they're being disgorged in Latin, started moving again. She wasn't talking. Thankfully. Silence: the sweetest music to my ears! Zane blew me a look, not of, you know, like, refuting-ness like I normally got, but more of just looking, witnessing creepily like he normally does. His eyeballs held a touch like he was the one hero when a crowd watched a kid get goaded by a bully and their unshakeable violence. His little hobble down the hallway after her made me follow, because I actually needed to say a couple non-evil words to him. That was a great plan until I felt Twinkies gently grab my hand and tug me back. Okay, apparently _he _needed to say something to me, too. Once the two realized that we weren't coming, they rotated to gaze back at us. "We'll catch up in a minute, okay?" Twinkies explained before I could do anything. To my horror, Zane nodded like he understood and followed Cupcakes. _Nuuuuu, _I thought, restraining from reaching out yearningly for their shrinking backs. _Don't leave me here with him! DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE WITH A TWINKIE! _I watched Cupcakes and Zane grow tinier down the hallway. So much for words.

I could feel Twinkies's fingers on my wrist. I should know; my pulse soared, lively, underneath the unique pattern of his fingerprints, staining my skin with their invisible vigor. I slowly could turn to him with my eyes low, only being able to reach up his chin, until I gained the courage and willpower to look higher. His eyes, flaming with something deep within them, met mine directly. This was not good. Every part of my body was finding some reason to react, especially my lungs, squeezing out the majority of my air before I could find it fast enough in replacement for the stuff that was somehow leaving me now. I didn't want to stand back here with him. I didn't want to be alone near Twinkies. I couldn't. This was against every rule I had set for myself, disbanding every single regulation I decreed be valid until I spoke otherwise. When I'd met Twinkies, when both of us were locked up in that weird cell back in Noel's pretty little dungeon, I had bound myself with plenty of constrictions and reasons and doubts just to keep me away from him. This went back on everything I had vowed to follow. It was like disgracing the life guidelines one abides by in participation to a specific religion.

I finally mustered the voice that was hidden in my throat. You know I'm not usually the quiet type when I have loads to say, but when it came to these situations, I was as good as a dead girl. No words to be had. "What?" I pressed my lips together in a thin line. Twinkies held fast to my wrist. I hated the burn underneath his touch.

"I wanted to talk to you," he said.

"I kinda got that, Captain Obvi." I rolled my eyes. Quite the show, isn't he? "We're marooned in the middle of the hallway with absolutely no idea where the others went. I'm sure there's a pretty darn good reason for you making me part with the other two, otherwise we wouldn't be standing here."

Twinkies raised an eyebrow. I duly noted that he was still holding my wrist, something I really wasn't digging to well, so I slowly started to untangle myself from the gentle band of his grasp. Twinkies appeared not to have remembered that he had this grip on my hand, despite the fact that my pulse was playing the drums of a rock song against my own skin, a feat I'm sure he'd felt clearly and plainly. He let me go promptly. "I figured now would be a good time to talk, since Nya and Kai and the others will be out for a while, and all we're doing is walking around. I saw the opportunity." _Cheesy opportunity for a conversation, _I thought. _What, exactly, is this about?_

I crossed my arms over my chest. Just ensuring he won't try and hold my hand again. Or, wrist. Whatever. "Shoot."

He reached, rubbing the back of his neck, eyes darting away to some point past me. The ghost long forgotten, I liked the growing flush on his cheeks better than I liked cookies, 'cause it was betraying his inner thoughts or something cheesy like that. He looked like a tard when he blushed. Boys I've met don't normally do that, but all of twice I've seen today two guys that really _do: _Squishy, and Twinkies. It's rather entertaining. "Well, I, um, I wanted to say…you were great out there today," he breathed. My eyebrows shot up. I wasn't expecting that one to come shooting up the geyser any time soon—it wasn't exactly the main event. My arms tightened around my chest. "I mean…what you did back there, to the shadows, it was awesome. And you saved us."

Something had taken itself up in Twinkies' blue eyes, something bright and soft all at once. Like something blurry around the edges but harder towards the center, where everything was bottled up but was slowly starting to bleed out of a wound that would never heal. Rapidly, my eyelids flickered, finding the sight of him still there. Twinkies shoved his hands in his sweatshirt pockets. My hesitation was noticed. "Yeah, well," I said roughly, trying to make up for the lost half-seconds. "It had to happen. And plus, I owed y'all one."

Twinkies made a face. "What do you mean?" He asked.

I shrugged. "Well, you save my crummy butt all the time. You and your little _muchachos. _So I figured I'd pay the piper." My tongue ran along the front of my teeth underneath the cover of my lip.

Twinkies chuckled. He batted his hand contemptuously. "Nah," he said, "we don't do it for the art of being repaid or anything." His hand came to his heart theatrically. "The repentance would just _kill _us." He grinned like the king's fool. My eyeballs rolled.

"You're incredible," I shook my head. "Look, dude, I did it to do it. _Comprende? Giron no owari." 'End of discussion.' _I jerked my chin towards the way that Zane had gone, eager to degenerate my existence. "Let's go. They're probably rooms ahead of us by now."

I started to move, but his hand grabbed mine again, pulling me back into the discussion I wasn't fit to having. I _really _didn't want to be here with him. I was more than willing to disappear completely, to sink into the walls and vanish or something, than to stand here and have some sort of heart-to-heart with him out of every person in the world. I dared to flee the scene, but get lost in a cavern of many detours—was there really no way out? I finally, under his urgent grasp on my arm, turned back to him, my eyes squeezed shut. I hoped that was enough of a sign for him to realize his unfairness and let me run away. Twinkies's face was as serious as anything, though. Damn. "I wasn't done," he told me, pulling me back to him. I pressed my lips together again.

"Then go on and get this over with."

Twinkies sighed. Once again, his face turned the color of a cherry bomb, making me want to snort and suppress laughter. But I refrained. Since I was forced to have respect for those around me and lack in any insulting activities, I was stuck having to sit here and swallow my bowels of laughter just for the preservation of others' mindsets. Twinks rubbed his wrist. I was glad he'd let go of mine. "Today," he started, licking his lips, "when we got here, Nya kissed me." His face turned redder. I shifted my feet. A point in time I was not the number one fan to; def _not _making the top ten favorite evenings list. So far, it looked like it hadn't scored on Twinkies's, either. "You saw it, and, um, afterwards, you gave me the cold shoulder. Now, you know the truth. That she's not my girlfriend or anything."

I narrowed my eyes. This conversation had taken a weird turn. "What's your point?" I snapped. Yeah, I'd given him the cold shoulder… For kissing her, he deserved it. For some reason.

For a tiny moment, Twinkies met my eyes, but quickly flashed his gaze somewhere else. If he has issues meeting my eyes at a dumb conversation like this, you know something's definitely up with his confidence in abstract conversations that could most likely intervene with his natural-born life. Assuming he was naturally born and didn't come out of a test tube, of course. "I just wanted to know…_why _you gave me the cold shoulder. I mean, like…did it upset you?"

Of all the things he'd say, I never expected that one. It took me enough by surprise to make me drop the squishy-eye act and bulge my blinkers out at him. The question itself was evasive; there was some deeper meaning to it I wasn't willing to amenably investigate. In the end it was still the asked question, and I had no clue how to answer it in the way that would say I knew my own feelings. I hadn't given much thought to why I would do something I didn't really think about, just did it when I had that chance, a type of act that's normally on my daily agenda. I know I'd been a little upset, but, why? That's the part I was lacking in being able to hail respondability to. My turn to stare at the floor finally came around. Okay…this was officially awkward.

"Why do you care?" I snapped. I did it 'cause I was morbidly uncomfortable. I do things, irritated-wise, when I get into that state of mind. Now was often the time for a classic Seiko Insult, but the words never came out of my mouth, much less the thought-process portion that conceived it. Twinkies looked up at me.

"I was just curious."

"It's a dumb question," I turned my back on him, facing the end where Zane and Cupcakes had found their ways to disappearing down. There was no visual telling me which door or path they might've escaped in. "It's not worth a response."

As much as I'd like to hope this was a joke, Twinkies's voice was serious. "Obviously I think it is, otherwise I wouldn't have asked it." I used my shoulder as a look-over and found that organic solemnity spread like jam over his face. I gave him my best _Dude _look. "I'm serious. I wanted an answer; that's why I asked."

"What's the point? Why do you need to know?" I turned on him. My gaze was sharp, always pointy, like it normally came with me. I liked to have a show of my impression of things, especially when a formidable joy came with the great unveiling of the intentions. His face was a sterling piece of seriousness, but with this edge to it that made me take a deep breath. Some part of me—although I'm not sure how dominant that part really is, I mean, _c'mon—_looked at him and saw a little kid, woven into his teenage features like an underlying, secret code. The other part of me—surely the bigger side—looked at him and saw someone who was more than willing to jump in front of a speeding bullet to protect people, and his resolution to do what he felt was right was more than treacherous. By that, I mean that he's gonna do what he wanted to do, and this upcoming quarrel definitely was coming to be a desire of his. I put my hands on my hips, fixedly targeting him with a hardened glare, and to be pitifully honest, I think my 'glare' was more vacant than hard.

"Why is it so hard to answer?" He shot me back with his own difficult question. EXCEPT he looked smug when he fired his. He knew he'd hit me. I stuck out my jaw again.

"Because it's a"—the word _dumb _got stuck in my throat. THANK YOU, Compulsion, you suck—"question I don't feel like answering." I gritted my teeth. Frickin' Compulsion. Now that sentence sounded weak, like it was able to be sunken into, some kind of statement to be said by a Cupcake. I added a pair of pursed lips to it to make him intimidated. _As if_ it even worked. I was increasingly finding myself getting upset. "Get over it and let's move on with our life, Twinkies-slash-Snickerdoodles-slash-Goldy Locks. It's not like you're going to change my ability to answer that question, so let's just pretend that you didn't ask it."

Now, I wasn't expecting the way his face cracked into a smile and laughter swallowed up his belly, making him seem not-so-serious anymore, suffice the humorless tone to it. His small chuckles fell into his hand, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose and tilting his head downwards so he could take a beat. I realized he was doing that to keep patience. Huh. Imagine that. I was irritating Twinkies. "I hate it when you push me away," he grumbled to himself. Words I was most likely not meant to hear.

Regardless I moved to them. "It's what I do," I said honestly, harshly. "Don't like it, that sucks."

"Yeah, but _why?" _Twinkies raised his head, looking at me insistently. His face was incredulous. What, is he so unwilling to believe I'm that person, or what? Is it so hard to grasp it?

"Because that's _who _I am," I snapped. This conversation had gone from compliment-compliment to stupid question-downfall argument. I wasn't ever the kind of person who liked to talk about _me _and have to explain myself to other people. It isn't fair to me, and it isn't fair to anyone else to have to listen to a pointless sob story that gets no one nowhere. How many times had I stood in this same position with Cole, destructing every flighter-plane carrying a message for me in question of why I acted the way I did. The killing is using my own self-defenses that normally destroyed more than just a flighter-plane; it also destroyed a relationship and the trust wrapped around it. My attitude was more than likely the reason why Cole no longer liked me very much—I didn't care if he did, I was fine without other people anyway—to also exenterating his heart. The scalpel was my words. Tipped. Fine pointed. Meaty and evil. His skin was torn apart by me—why didn't he stick up for me? Why didn't he protect me? In our childhood, that had been our bond, protection lethal beyond everyone else's hatred, blossoming greater than even the most fantastic of the world's finest weaponry. It was our trademark. The Mitsuhide siblings were closer than adjoined blood. Everyone around the school knew it, until he passed the age of ten and our ties started to sever. Could we be close as we had once been? No. we couldn't. He would always push me away. He knew who I really was. The day that Cole stopped protecting me was the day that I, as a little girl, vowed I would never, ever feel love again.

It was also the day I got brain trauma from being hit by my father and pushed into the wall. It was a while after my mother had died, when our already epic-fail of a connection was starting to detach further past the breaking point. Cole was sixteen, but I was eleven, just a little girl trying to get past her cunning father and the ugly way she hated him with all her organs. Cole was already having issues with the both of us—every day after school, he'd spend his time with his dark-skinned friend named Jamie and a bunch of other guys and chicks rather than coming home. He'd drop me off then ditch me by myself while my father was always off in the afternoons doing something with his quartet. I had the house to myself most days, except for Saturday and Sunday, when my father was home but working, cooped up in his room. It didn't matter if it was the weekend. Cole would be out all day then go to parties and bonfires at night, never returning until late beyond midnight, creeping into the room when he really didn't need to _creep; _both my father and I knew where he'd been. The days I spent alone in the house with my father were the days that Lou spent hating me, finding every little reason to yell at me even when it was no big deal, nor even my fault. But the day he pushed me had been the day I'd really become the way that I am today.

I had been in the dining room. A box of leftover pizza that Cole had brought home the night before was sitting there, while I treated myself to that for the lack of nourishment in the cupboards and refrigerator. Cole was in the living room with that Jamie dude, a bag of popcorn, and the video games on, ignoring me completely when I'd slinked in there earlier asking either of them if they wanted to go to the beach. Cole had yelled no at me and told me to walk away. So from there I was busy picking at a piece of cold pizza and tearing off the chunks of meat and throwing them into a napkin. It had seemed like an act that meant nothing, that was really insignificant to the makeup of the universe. But…

My father had come stomping in, his hair as clean and gelled as normal. His face was thin, his eyes sunken inwards. He stared hard at me, like he'd been searching for some misdemeanor in my actions to give him a reason to throw me in a group home. I'd stared back. I hated the way he started yelling immediately. It wasn't needed, but he did it anyway, his voice the only thing I could hear in its angry, loud echoes. I'd cringed. _"What are you doing, sitting there? Why aren't you cleaning something like you should be?" _

_"Uh, 'cause I'm not your maid?" _I'd said, rolling my eyes. I hadn't wanted to hear the whole Cinderella punishment again. _"You want someone to do it, get one of your girlfriends to clean for you. You have sixteen to choose from. I'm sure one of them would be more than happy to serve an old man, right, Twinkletoes, Senior?" _ (Twinkletoes Junior was Cole at the time.)

My father had stomped across the floor, yanked me out of my chair. "_That is utter disrespect! A disgrace to the family name! Apologize!"_ At the yelling, Cole had come trotting around the corner, coming to see what we were yelling about this time. He didn't care what it was about…he was just being nosy. I met his eyes, asking for some kind of assistance, but that was where Cole just stared at me, hollow. He was making his decision, and that lack of serenity told me that I was all alone to handle this one. Not that he'd ever helped before, but it was enough to tell me he wouldn't help me in the future, either.

I looked to my father with spit on my lips, just for him. _"For what, admitting aloud that you have sixteen girlfriends, or for telling you that I'm not a little bitch you get to throw around like you do to them? Sorry, Lou, slavery was abolished YEARS ago. That might put a damper on your daily plans, but I'm not going to get thrown around by a pretentious asshole like you. Unlike the bimbos you have tailing after you, I actually have DIGNITY." _

The slap across the face had come then, hitting me so hard across the cheek that my flesh throbbed like strobe lights. The force of the whack had been so heavy that I, an eleven year old to a mid-thirties child beater, got shoved against the wall. My skull cracked against the hard wood, covered by a cream-colored primer to avert one from discovering the ugliness underneath. Everything in my vision danced with red dots. Something was dripping into my eyes: my blood. As I slid down the wall, hitting the base with helplessness for nothing, I'd found a time to look directly at my brother. In his eyes I saw nothing. No shock, no concern, no startle or shame. Just empty holes that I met. I slowly passed out, hearing my father's voice amid the endless void I was sinking into: _"No daughter of mine will speak to me in such a disrespectful way."_

I swore that day that I'd never let anyone hurt me again. That I would never feel simple emotion towards another human being, ever ever _ever, _that I would only file revenge and hatred and all these things that would keep me alive. If I let myself love, then I would be weak, capable of being defeated. There's that saying, "Anyone capable of feeling love is capable of being saved." But in my mind, anyone capable of loving is able to be conquered. They're spineless. Crushable. You can instantaneously demolish them under your pinky toe. It's so easy, because their heartfelt emotions get in the way. Their love, their compassion, their understanding, their selflessness—it's all just a road block. Love holds you back.

"It's who I am," I croaked again to Twinkies, who was looking at me through the fog. My acception of reality was slowly coming back. I turned my chin up to him. Twinkies was someone who loved. He was "capable of being saved." But I wasn't. I wasn't at all. And that's…pitiful. I shook my head, trying to grab the reigns of my mind, but it was starting to do that thing again. My hands started to tremble. "I—it's who I—I'm that kind of person, I—"

It was happening again. Twice in one day, I was beginning to find the meaning in life. Was some kind of higher entity watching over me and trying to change me or something, or was this some kind of weird voodoo thing? _It's okay to let go. We will catch you as you fall. _I could hear Wu's voice in my head again. By hating people all the time, I wasn't living, not alive, dead girl walking. It wasn't always the compassionate people's emotions that got in the way. It wasn't always their love, their understanding, their competence to help those who needed it like Zane was doing. That wasn't holding them back. They weren't being held back because they were truly living. They were alive, and they were feeling every nook and cranny of humanity with eager hearts and round faces, cheeky grins, slight mishaps to learn from. The people who were being held back…the people who were being malformed by thoughts like mine…they were people who didn't have those emotions. People like me. Who thought that if you didn't care, you were safe. Protected. That was wrong. My past had woven me a lie. All it was doing was pushing me away from people—no, _I _was pushing people away, and when I did that, I was becoming weak. Weak people were all alone in the world; when they had no one, they were more supple to the ideas of death, darkness, hatred and anger. But if I wanted to be alive—if I wanted to be safe, I was not to be emotionless and cold. I was to be ardent. To be accepting. All I was doing was paving a miserable path for myself to crawl down until I died one day, lonely and afraid and a waste of a lifetime trailing behind me. The knot inside of me, like it had earlier, began to unravel. I was beginning to become unclenched, my dark walls around myself starting to sink. Looking into Twinkies's eyes now, it was like I was seeing myself do this through his senses. I was watching myself release this while he watched it, too—he knew that I was doing this. He knew that I was doing something that was life-changing. I could see it on my face, for crying out loud. The walls were falling. My emotions were bleeding on my face, my pain, my hurt, my eagerness to live like Cole did, to live like _Twinkies _did creeping over my features, seeping into the pores of my skin like oils. Everything was dripping across my face. Instead of Twinkies looking like the little kid now, it was _me. I _was looking like a little girl again. _I look so weedy, _I thought, but that perception was cut short by the police invading my mind now with their living-acceptance policies that I really was starting to get tired of. If I was going to live I had to drop thoughts like that. Those words. It's why Cole took away my freedom; so he could show me how much better it was to live _without _it.

Oh, my god, Cole. While I'm sitting here hating you from a distance, you were actually trying to _help _me. Remorse for being so awful in my thoughts towards him flooded past the gates holding those girly emotions back, washing my insides with its restoration of beginning anew-ness, forfeiting my ugly life to the demons that they came from. I could feel the cluttered disgusting and need for simple perfection wrapping me in its tight grounds. Advent emotions contented my insides. My heart was drumming wildly underneath my skin, ghosting its way through my renaissance. I could actually _feel _it. It was humming. Blooming. Singing or something sissy like that, but the song was making my whole body shake.

I was sucked back into my own body. I literally had another think coming my way. A new thought process. A rebirth of some sorts that was starting to take me over; Twinkies onlooked with the suggestion of a smile on his lips. He reached out to take my hands between both of his. "It's okay," he whispered, bringing me back into his world. I saw every contour of his face, the way his nose was shaped, the cupid's bow of his lips, every individual golden eyelash along his eyes. His golden eyebrows. The birthmark alarmishingly congruent to mine. "It's okay to love." I sucked in a curt, distinct breath. It was to keep my nose from snotting and the weird sting in my eyes at bay. Those beautiful hands, keen borne in my eyes, swaddled my tiny hands between his own. "It really is, Seiko. I was hoping I could do this. Make you feel alive again. That's how I want you to be. Alive."

"Y-yo-ou?" I asked. He did this? I sucked in a breath.

Twi—Lloyd nodded, bending down to my height. "I was trying to trigger an epiphany inside of you, like earlier," he said. "Sensei told me that you only seem to see the world for what it really is when you have one. He also told me that he thought I was the only one you would listen to."

The warmth of my virgin cogitation was still cleansing my icky insides. I could feel the sponge that it came with scraping against my stomach. Butterflies. I'd never had those before. They kind of…tickled.

Was Lloyd the only one I'd listen to? I sniffed. "This is why y-you kept me back here? So you could make me…feel alive again?" I asked. If I wasn't currently undergoing attitude maintenance, I would've punched him in the gut.

He nodded again. "Yeah," he said. I admired our laced hands. He rubbed small circles with his thumb across the back of my hand. It felt…calming. Soothing. I watched them move. I spied a cracked thumbnail. "I know that you have a lot of pent up emotions, and I really wanted to help you. I used to be that way too, until I talked about it. I wasn't as, you know, exorbitantly volatile like you, but I had some unfinished business with my emotions, and they needed to be dealt with. I don't want you to become all…dark and brooding. That is _one_ road leading to disaster." He shook his head. "And besides, I think that you're _much _more attractive when you're not trying to bite people with your words."

"Attractive?" I repeated. I felt like a frickin' airhead, floating. That, or I was drunk off my ass. Everything was really bright, sucked into my senses in a rush so I could feel it all at once. His eyes were all I could see. Blue. No red.

Only his lips smiled ethereally. "Definitely," he said, and his smile broadened to show a row of white teeth. I sniffed harder. "I'll help you drop the darkness, Seiko. I don't want to lose the fight to your dark feelings. I mean, I know competition can get pretty bad with girls, but I think it would suck if I lost to something inside of you."

My heart thundered. I could hear each individual beat unlike I had ever heard it before, matching the strange thought that the noise had only just been invented a few moments ago, when I felt alive again. My blood ran through my veins, howling like a pack of wolves ready for a fight, their screams wild and heavy enough to frighten someone living in a cabin just off the woods to closing their windows at night. My arms palpitated. Hands, they were freezing against Lloyd's warm palms. "C-competition," I said. I didn't quite get what he meant.

Lloyd's face no longer turned red. Did it only do that when he was lying? He rubbed continuous circles into my skin, effortless into calming me. It was that weird sensation. The um, the way when he touched me he cancelled out all my feelings, that dealio. I… I'm floating on Cloud 9 right now. I can't even think. Rapt to his gaze, my lips dissevered. Both of us were so calm it was unnatural, of course compacted by the striking ability to deface each other's antsy fervor through supernatural connections. "I talked to Kai a little bit about it earlier today, in the car with you when we were first coming here. You were asleep, and I was curious," he annotated. "I'm not very educated when it comes to what girls are all about. I didn't know…exactly how I'm supposed to deal with you." Deal with me. Like I'm some kind of issue? "He told me just to let things happen candidly, the way they should. Then Sensei comes along and tells me _I'm _the only one who can keep you grounded, because you and I are part of a bigger whole. The Yin and Yang. He said that you and me…we're the same." He lifted our hands in front of him, and to promulgate his goal, reshaped our hands to put our palms together and fingers twined between one another. I looked at my left hand, pushed in coronation with his right. The mark of the eye was pinned across the back of it. The green ink stared back at me with the red dot in the center. His right hand had the same mark, except the red was the assertive color and the green dot was the pupil. The twin Eyes. I watched it stare at me for a second before contacting his eyes again. "Sensei told me that we're two halves of a whole. Together, we're like one entity. One being. We cancel out each other's feelings and powers because we're opposites. We understand each other best. We're a lot like each other, just in a messed up, non-related way. Connected. Right now, the only reason you're accepting the idea of being alive is because I'm not exactly totally pure to my element like I should be, so neither are you. I have venom inside of me, and it's upsetting your darkness into seeing a little of the light because _I'm _seeing a little of the darkness. It's nature trying to balance us out. But to be honest, I'd rather have you seeing the light if it meant you were happy, you know? I'd like to be a little dark if it meant that you got to see the world how it really is. Feel what it's like to be alive."

I knew he was saying something. Saying something seriously deep. But I, out of fear, ignored it and scoffed a little, turning away the subject from what he was _really _saying. "You're too selfless for your own good," I wheezed, ragged. I cleared my throat. "It's a bit scary."

"Maybe to you," Lloyd said. He didn't laugh. He tightened his grip on my left hand. "You've never felt this way before. Can you feel your heart beating fiercely? Can you hear everything? Can you feel the cold air fill your lungs when you take a deep breath? Do you feel the way your stomach is fluttering right now, butterflies dancing inside of you?" I could feel everything he was explaining. I swallowed hard. I could hear an abundance of heartbeats engulf my ears.

"You feel it too, then?" I asked. Lloyd nodded. "Is it always going to be like this?" I whispered, feeling sick to my stomach with those butterflies he described eating my organs. "I feel like I just ate a posse of Cupcakes."

Lloyd laughed softly. His eyes were really intense. His face might've been light, secure, and at ease, but his eyes were burning holes into my corneas. His look flickered from my pupils to lower down my face. I started _really _shaking this time—but not from reality or chills. "No," he said, his hand giving mine a squeeze. "I only ever have this feeling when I'm around you."

My heartbeat seemed to stop and run faster synchronously, as if that were even possible. The words I was trying not to hear were all I _could _hear, and the butterflies danced the salsa inside of me. My pulse went on rebound, blood soaring through my veins, hot and alive. The adrenaline rush made my cheeks heat, but there was no red to my skin anymore, so the blush was not there. This wasn't good. Though feeling alive was great, this—this _feeling _in my stomach was killing me. I shook. "Don't…" I whispered, "Don't go all soft on me, Twinkies."

Lloyd smiled. Ah, jeez, why was he such a sedate person? This wasn't—this was making me horrifically _uncomfortable—_I don't like this. I don't like it anymore. I have to let go of him. We already went through this a couple of days ago, Twinkies, I can't do this to you—Okay, body, _let go _of his hand now…Let go. Why can't I let go of his stupid hand?

_Because you don't want to, _said the voice that had made me stop here in the hallway in the first place. I dug my nails into his skin, but without the force to make it hurt. I wanted him to know how _scared _I was. Lloyd's lips pursed with perceptivity. "Seiko, the only reason I have _ever _gone soft"—he bent down lower so he could look me directly in the eye, voice lowered—"is because _you _made me."

Bam. Why didn't he just shoot me in the head, for crying out loud? Don't _say _that to me, you idiot! I wanted to smack him across the face for saying something so serious. I hoped I could at least say: "Dummy, don't say that," I whispered, but it wasn't very loud.

"Why not? You scared?" Lloyd teased, reaching with his free hand to gently wipe my bangs out of my eyes. I felt cold air hit my newly uncovered skin painfully, but I didn't stop him.

"_NO! _I am _not _scared of you. You're Twinkies. Not at all frightening."

Lloyd chuckled. I wasn't afraid of Twinkies. He was, more or less, like a squishy starfish; to me, at least, there was nothing menacing about him. He may be an ass when he's high on Devourer venom, but he's never been anyone who acted only for himself. Everything he does…is for others. The people he cares about, and even the people he doesn't even know. He would rather jump on top of a grenade than have to see someone he loves/ doesn't know suffer. He was charitably chivalrous and it made me want to smack him in the nose every time he did something that didn't come to his name. People like that don't scare me; the things they _do, _however, are what I'm terrified of. They're unpredictable when it comes to acting for others.

I got the picture that in my "dark days" I wanted to hit Lloyd. I still wanted to hit him, especially now. But I remember a part of my childhood, a part when Cole and I were friends, in which we'd been playing in a park with two other kids. One was a boy, another was a girl; I don't remember, really, who they were, but I know I kept hitting the boy when he pulled a very Twinkie-like operation. Cole had pointed at me and said, "_She likes you! She likes you!"_ It had only been after the fact that I'd been told the reason I kept hitting him was because I liked him. So I stopped hitting people. I punched them instead.

Either way, I now grew numb. I disavow to believe that I want to hit Twinkies all the time because I _like _him; I hit him because he did something dumb and he deserved a little punishment for it.

Lloyd's hand moved from sweeping my bangs over to trailing down the side of my face, tracing the curve of my chin with his finger. I wasn't liking this. I wasn't liking it at all. It was scaring me just to have him touching me like this; I thought back to my old rules. I'd pledged with the signature of my own blood that I wouldn't ever love again. Would it make me weak if I went back on that staid promise? Would I lose everything if I devoted myself to going back on it, only to find despair at the end of the corridor, awaiting to take me back into darkness? What if, like the last time I'd loved, my heart got broken? Cole and Lou had already seen to making sure that I would never have the trust it would take to be in a committed, healthy relationship with anyone, not even Candice, the nurse back at Sunnyside that I had actually had the willpower to respect. There could only be one bad thing for me to come out of something like this. The bond I had with Lloyd _now _was just fine; I didn't need to be _with _him to be fine _around _him. I couldn't do this. I couldn't be with him.

_It's okay to love, _he'd said. "But what if I get hurt?" I realized I'd whispered that last part aloud. I regretted saying it on a dime. My visible cringe brought the look on Lloyd's face closer to reality; there was a soft survey in his eyes, waiting for me to collapse. Breathing receded into short intakes, chest heaving every second. I couldn't do this. I was going to get hurt.

His fingers stopped at my chin. "_I'm _certainly not going to hurt you." He murmured. Didn't he realize he was _already _hurting me? Lloyd's hand cupped my cheek into his palm, a perfect fit against his warm engraved prints from his skin. My heart pounded faster. All he looked at now was not my eyes, but my mouth, a place I was dreading that he'd touch. I needed to leave him. I couldn't stay. He whispered as he leaned close, eliminating the space between our mouths. I could taste his breath, hot and warm, curling into my nose and parted lips to fill me completely with the hot air, already tasting divine on my tongue. His toxic scent consumed my body in the rivets of his finest human smell, his own personal flavor that I was dying to get a taste of. "The first rule of truly living," Lloyd's voice was low enough for me and _only _me to hear in my moment of weakness. I stopped breathing altogether when his lower lip barely brushed my upper one to speak, "is to do the thing you're most afraid of."

His lips pressed against mine.

It was an aurora borealis of sensations. His mouth tasted like lip balm, some kind of cherry flavor ordeal that I thought tasted like heaven. It was softer than the best pillow I've _ever _laid my head on, ten thousand times _greater _than a Tempur-Pedic bed (which suck to lay on, just so you know) and even a freaking _waterbed _(which is one of the coolest beds you'll ever sit on) or even a cloud (no, I've never touched one.) An explosion went off, and the butterflies in my stomach were suddenly climbing up my throat and jumping around in my ribcage, planting this vomit-y feeling with their seeds of butterfly annoying-ness wherever they happened to sit. My heart stopped thundering in my chest. I thought maybe for a second I was dead. But I could suddenly feel nothing but Lloyd's hands, my recovery coming quick enough to find them _both, _my left hand free, trailing down my back. Crawling drowsily over the material of my shirt, headed for the small of my back, clasping together there and splaying his fingers wide. He pulled me closer to him. Our kiss deepened, and once again I was demoralized by my own heart spasms. My hands were shaking against his chest. I could understand why my cheeks were flaming, why my mind was buzzing without reasonable doubt, presumable cause to be fluctuated. His mouth urgently worked against mine, face moving in sync with my own, pulling me closer to eliminate the dreary space between us that neither of us wanted to exist. My hands climbed up his neck, and tangled in the hair I'd wanted to touch since I first met him. It was as soft as linens between my fingers, twisted and knotted around my nails, a ribbon of golden in my hands. It was actually a lot less plush than his lips…

_Lloyd, you twit… You're making me think like a friggin' Cupcake, you jerkass. _The palpation between us made my eyes squeeze shut. I couldn't breathe at all. It seemed like Twinks had the same idea on deck too.

And then it was over. Too soon, our kiss ended with an agonizing _click._ The kiss took twenty minutes to me, but to the real world it was only a few seconds, either way becoming extremely harrowing. How could he do that to me? My head fell against his chest, between my own two hands. I could hear his heart thundering underneath his chest. _Twinkies is scared? _I thought, traveling back to his great motif of life before he'd smooched my face without permission. _The first rule of truly living is to do the thing you're most afraid of. _Was that a core exemplar he was trying to teach me, or was it meant for the both of us?

Our breathing was ragged, uneven, never matching the breath of the other. I closed my eyes and let me bury myself in the Downy his shirt was washed in for a little while longer, his chin settling on the crown of my head, arms locking me in some sort of cradle that was meant to be comforting but missed the mark. This was definitely against _all _my rules. But right now those rules sounded like a joke to me. I couldn't take them seriously anymore. In my heart, though its din was quiet enough to still be there but also be forgotten easily, was that _alive _feeling, broadened under the sweet, cherry-flavored brush of Twinkies's lips. There was nothing I wanted more right now than to keep my face right where it was, count each individual heartbeat that came out of his huge heart, and fall asleep to that very ticking of an inner life force, gorged by my own swallowing of stones. I had just kissed Twinkies McSnickerdoodles. I'd _kissed _him. Holy friggin' _crap._

This was not good.

Lloyd's hand stroked my hair. He pressed his lips to my hair. "Now _that," _he said, breaking the tension between us, "should've been my first kiss."

I gave a dry laugh for his satisfaction. But in my stomach was this awful confusion of gnats instead of the epic butterflies that had swarmed in our epic moment. I knew what we'd just done was wrong, and it had to be put to rest. I couldn't let this go on any further than just this. I'd already complicated enough with my apex of sinful discoveries and actions, stumbling upon something this humanly normal needed a good coming to a crude halt. I squeezed shut my eyes. To say this took away my heart—I could feel it being ripped out of my chest with the words uttered in scared truancy from the grounds. "It shouldn't have happened at all," I croaked. Lloyd nudged the top of my head with his chin.

"What, exactly, does that mean?"

I detached myself from him, coming into terms with my own breathless hurt. I broke all physical contact I had with him, painstakingly harmful to my innards, to look him in the eye. Jeez, I hope my face isn't bleeding the way it feels like it is… Lloyd's eyes were technical. "You just stepped into a wire trap there, dude. This thing we've got going…" I waved to the space between me and him. "It's not going to work."

"Why?"

"I don't…" I looked at his puppy dog eyes. Aw, c'mon, seriously. He was whipping out the honkin' Bambi right in front of me? No. _No, thou art not guilting me into doing thy bidding! Nuuu. _I stuck out my chin. "We can't do this. This couples' thing you want us to have, it's not going to happen. I don't…I can't be with you."

"Why not?" He pressed. The Bambi eyeballs widened. _NO. DON'T YOU DO THAT! _I wanted to HIT him—

Noooo, no I don't.

I'M SO CONFLICTED!

_Okay, get a hold of yourself, Seiko, you're being stupid. You need to chill out here. Remember that those who feel things are spineless, and in the end it's those who don't give into their emotions that make the higher—_

"Anyone capable of love is capable of being saved," Lloyd told me, breaking out of my inner monologue. How did he know that? REALLY? I must've shown that one on my face, 'cause he tapped the back of his right hand. That damn Eye. I clenched my fists. "And besides, as much as I'd love to sit here and torture you with that phrase, I know that what you're saying right now isn't really what you want."

"Oh, yeah?" I challenged. "How would you know _anything _about me?"

Lloyd gave me his best _really? _look. There's no word I can think of that would describe it at the moment. "Because I've spent a month and a half with you locked up in the Underworld, and everyone who reads your narrative probably knows just who you are, too." My face pinched. He shook his head impatiently, waving it off. "Never mind. Look, Seiko, the point is that both you and I know that you're just saying those things because you're scared of what might happen. You don't _know _what might happen, and that scares you. But didn't we just go through this? It's _okay _to love," he said, speaking in a way that he would use if he were talking to someone who's given up all hope. He reached out to me with his vocal Lloyd (ha, see what I did there?) way of doing things, using his hands to sweep me into the honesty of a gentleman's voice. He pulled me closer again by my forearm. "And I want you to know that it doesn't matter what you look like, what you sound like, what your own twisted sense of humor revolves around or what color your eyes are, or if you're only five feet tall, or what kind of jokes you make, if you're a vegetarian or a vegan—remember that conversation?—or if you would rather throw turtles at a lobster house in your free time. None of that matters to me. I'm not going to judge you, and I'm not going to hurt you, and I can promise both of those things. I don't break my promises. I just want you for who you are. I don't care if you dye your hair _purple, _for cheese's sake." He reached up and brushed my anchored bangs that everyone seemed to love toying with as a usable for their hands to do when just standing in my propinquity. This time, they stayed tucked behind my ear, leaving my eyeball exposed, my birthmark naked, and my usual curtain to hide behind tapered away. I shivered when his fingers came up to gently stroke my cheeks from both sides. Lloyd's bright blue eyes were now the only thing I could see. "If I'm with you, I'll protect you with _everything _I have. Not that I wouldn't do it anyway, but you have a guarantee that you're safe. I'm not going to hurt you," he repeated. "And no one else will. Just because you're a little 'off,' in your terms, has never turned me away. I still want to be with you. And I still care about you, and I still like you. Just the way you are."

I smiled, in spite of myself. I didn't want to admit how much I loved that he was holding my face between his hands, or how I could smell him again, or how I was loving every word that came out of his posh little mouth. In my life, all I'd ever wanted to hear was that someone was _okay _with who I was. I certainly never heard that from either of the two dominant male figures in my life, but Lloyd had just told me everything I'd ever wanted to be told. He was _okay _with me, and that made it _okay _to be myself, especially now with this lively feeling dancing in my stomach. Maybe he was right, leaving it okay for me to love, let some of my guard down and allow everyone in, to show them that every part of me was now able to feel some emotion. Anyone capable of feeling love is capable of being saved. Did it mean that _I _could be saved if I let the people around me in?

"It's okay," Lloyd whispered, in turn pulling me close again. I closed my eyes with the anticipation of having his lips connect with mine, to feel them warm my own, soft and completely _delectable—_

"WAAAIIIIITT!" yelled a voice. We both practically jumped out of our skins hearing the loud girl's voice come screeching out of nowhere, taking Lloyd to peering over his shoulder and me eyeballing the girl who appeared from around his arm. I swear, I hadn't even heard or sensed her coming. Her hair was pulled back from her face in a messy ponytail made up of curly red hair, and her face was a weird circle shape. Her eyes were brown, but her eye_brows _were blonde, and she had a pair of green reading glasses at the end of her nose. She was wearing pajamas printed by panda bears and bamboo. In her hands was a clipboard and a perfectly sharpened pencil. Something told me that she was a little rough around the edges. She waved her fingers at us. "Not to bother you, but I'm going to have to stop you from your little make-out session in the middle of the hallway."

"What?" Lloyd opened his mouth, but she did a quick open of her hand, close of her hand to indicate silence. He obeyed.

"Who are you?" I snapped.

The girl smiled at me thinly. She talked fast. "Would you believe that I'm having a bad day? It's just been a serious dragger for me, especially my inability to write a really good chapter for my readers. Yeah, keep staring at me like that, Mitsuhide, because I can totally eliminate you from existence if you tip the bush. You don't want that, and neither do I, because you're pretty popular with the fans, got it? So don't tempt me. Now, you're probably going to stare at me like I'm speaking Bulgarian, but I have just been fed up with people and their OC's today, and I'm sorry to say that this little 'moment'"—she did air quotes, holding her arms out on either side of her with the clipboard still tacked to her palm by two fingers and a thumb—"is extremely obnoxious. I'm starting to go really mainstream and I'm hating that NfaN is taking that turn. BUP! No questions," she zipped her lips at me when I opened my mouth, pointing at me with a short-fingered nail like it was the last thing I'd ever see. "What did I say about erasing, Mitsuhide? It's not that hard for me to write a chapter where you die and stay dead! I did it to Darreth, didn't I? He was a pedo anyway, but that's not the point here. It's certainly _not _going to be hard to do to you. Now, on a much more exempt note, I'd rather not do something so horrifically overdone in the world of Fanfictia to NfaN just because you people are incapable of getting out of my brain, so I am going to politely ask you to stop your kissing thingy"—she moved her pencil hand in a wide circle—"now, okay? You're cute and all, but I don't think anyone will be pleased with this chapter when it's published. Although I do like to string things along and make my readers have to wait for the birth of Nya's vampire baby, I didn't have this whole spiel in mind. Actually, I wasn't even going to have this happen, but I'm feeling a little girly today, so why the hell not?" She shrugged, pulling her clipboard into the cradle of her arm and stabbing her pencil furiously against the paper attached to it, scribbling down something important. "Now, I probably just lost half of my fanbase _doing _this to you two and indulging in my more frillish Cupcake side, and if that's the case, I'm going to kill you in the future, Seiko, and make Lloyd suffer through something ugly because you both are, frankly, pissing me off."

"Hey, chill, man. What…" Lloyd cleared his throat, standing a little taller. The girl's focus was down her clear lenses at the piece of paper clinging to the roster pressed against her chest. The panda published on her shirt lacquered a blank look of stupidity I loathed. "How are we pissing you off? We're just standing here."

The girl ripped the paper off her board, folded it with one hand, and passed it along to me like a prescription or speeding ticket. "I guess it's just that time of the month, Twinkies." She said, rewarded by a snort out of me as I unfolded the paper. "You can expect more tragedies at my wrath in the future of your currently two-and-a-half book lifeline, unless I really _do_ take up renewing you for Season Two. We'll see how it goes. But I demand NO MORE SISSY SHIT, and if my sister even _dares _to beg that I continue with your little relationship, I'm going to go berserk and chop off the head of one of your friends."

I read the words on the paper, confounded by literature at the most. I held it between both hands between my thumb and forefinger, but my bent head over the scripture was upturned when I gave her a mystified look. "If you have that kind of power over everything, why aren't you chopping off the head of, I dunno, say, KAOS?"

The girl pointed a finger at me again. I wanted to bite it off. "Don't get _snippy, _Mitsuhide! I don't do it because I have a finale planned for the end of this book and I will not have it ruined by you. I have to at least keep you alive for a little while longer, but don't consider my previous threat revoked. Force will be used if necessary." One brisk nod finalized her argument of one. She glanced at her roster, cradled in her arm childishly, one last time. "Now, if I'm correct—and I am—you're about to forget that I was just standing here, and I'm going to tend to the baby that's squalling and crapping herself in her crib. Don't forget the promise _I _made." Her lips pressed in a thin, pink line, a random streak across the lower half of her face. Her voice dropped to a menacing interval. "I have the power to kill you. Beware my unforgiving soul, for thou ist not safe with the vowel and consonants of N-F-A-N." The girl snapped her fingers, and just like that, disappeared into thin air.

I stared at the paper in my hands, the previous conversation we'd just had with a stranger erased from my mind. I hadn't known where it had even come from—the words were written in neat cursive, slanted and timeless, against a white sheet of blank paper. The ink was manufactured in the color orange. Strangely enough, I'd no idea where that piece of paper even came from, or even the knowledge that they mass-produced pens with such a ludicrous color. I looked to the words and tilted my head. "What's that?" asked Lloyd from in front of me, moving to my side so he could read the words I did. This paper, for all I knew, had equivocally appeared in my hands in the blink of a few seconds.

"You know, I actually have no clue."

_You two might be so adorable to my little sister, but guess what, Twinkies McSnickerdoodles and Doppelganger Central—I don't know if you two being together is the best idea. Seriously. Have we considered that this is a No Romance grounds only, exceptions made for the Jaya/Coya love triangle and the little Kai issue? Sure, I did spit out this chapter because I'm having a pretty sh*tty day and wanted some girly recognizance, but guess what? I still don't know if I want you two to be together. Like, c'mon. I'm hating on a lot of people right now. I am seriously hating Danielle, and I'm seriously hating Caroline, and the insurance guy who keeps calling my phone asking for Cory, whom I don't know. I DON'T HAVE INSURANCE! And you know what, I feel like bitchin' out on everyone but Rikku today. Rikku is so innocent he has nothing to do with this. And plus, he's charging in a room you guys haven't seen yet cuz you're so busy making out in the hallway. So, consider Rikku just this cute little fluffy pillow in the corner that deserves candy. Either way, I want to slap both of you. But more importantly, I want to slap myself. This is currently 27 pages of absolutely nothing but Kairi-like boringness, and I hope to goodness that I didn't just get docked a few fans. So with your lifelines hanging over your heads, let's keep this filtered, alright? I'M HAVING AN UGLY DAY. DON'T RUIN IT ANY MORE THAN YOU ALREADY HAVE. _

_If you'll excuse me, I have a Zane to go tickle and an Emily to create._

_Best regards, Kairi._

I stared hard at the letter in front of me. "What the hell just happened?" I asked of what I had read, finding myself tangled in some weird prank I thought might be pulled by the despicable Twinks himself, but his face disbanded any kind of qualm I may have had. He met me with a dropped jaw.

"Who's Kairi?" He asked, gently depriving me of holding the printer paper. He held it awkwardly with his wrist jutted out and his hand arresting it upside down from the top of the page. His brow bone furrowed. "And Emily? And why does she hate Danielle and Caroline? And why is she tickling Zane?"

I encountered something light falling onto my head. I reached up to find a pink Post-It note hewed to my hair. It was in the same cursive. "'_Because Danielle is annoying and Caroline needs to stay dead,'" _I read aloud. I flipped the note over at the skinny arrow suggesting I do so, slashed over the bottom of the square note. _"'Emily is a robot that Zane would know. Yuki is also a robot. Zane is ticklish. 'Nuff said, Fro-Yo.'" _I snorted, inclining my head to look up at him. Lloyd didn't turn his head to me, but let his eyes flicker into my own with the first note pendulous in front of his face. My mouth smothered a grin. "You just got called a Fro-Yo," I giggled. Lloyd rolled his eyes at me and playfully jabbed my waist with a free finger. I danced around another injection from his long phalange. It tickled to be poked. "Maybe Kairi is a ghost who has the power to deliver cryptic messages at will, some kind of omen from the Other Side." I giggled again. I found my own statement funny. Say whatcha want.

Lloyd dropped the note to his side. "I never read anything about a Yuki," he said.

A flutter against my head again brought my hand to my crown, pulling from my tangle of black hair a blue Post-It note instead. I pried the sticky adhesive barred across the upper rim to the back of the cerulean epistle from my fingers. "'_Give it a second. You will.'" _I chortled. I actually found this amusing, though Lloyd seemed a little bothered by it. "Doesn't this remind you of _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets? _He had that empty journal, and he was writing questions in it, and some creepy thing controlled by Tom Riddle's spirit was answering back through the journal."

Lloyd's countenance told me he did not. "I have never been affiliated with Harry Potter," he told me.

"NO? C'mon, dude, you're missing out." I nudged him with the back of my wrist. He didn't budge under the press of the prod against his bicep. "The nurses played it in the commons all the time at Sunnyside. Hell, it gave everyone nightmares, but they kept arguing that it was a classic to be had. The patients much rather would've watched _Gnomeo and Juliet _for lack of violence and hard-to-follow concepts, but that's them."

"I do believe it is _Romeo and Juliet," _said a voice. Lloyd twisted his hips backwards for a better look. I stopped simpering to peer around Lloyd's body at the boy shoddling down the hallway, a first aid kit in his arms. Okay, I'm not going to lie: I thought he was a chick. His hair was bleach-white, pulled back from his face in a long, straight ponytail off the back of his head. His eyelashes were _inches _longer than mine, black, scraping against his eyebrows for their length, and I found the irises to these aberrant, WIDE eyes the color of sand. His mouth was small, full, like a doll's mouth is: tiny, but puckered perfectly. Do you understand what I mean? The glossy skin to his lips was fundamentally blinding. I could see thousands of women just _dying _to get them—they were the shape that most wanted, the Barbie outline that they tried to achieve with injections of Botox and craploads of cash spent on plastic surgery.

So, if you're wondering how I know it's a _he—_it was a) the way he was walking and b) the flat chest. Not all girls packed a punch when it came to breasts, but this guy just wasn't pulling it off. The purpose of this might've been to _look _like a girl, but some part of me knew he was born that femininely accursed.

I thought for a moment. "Yuki?" I said when he came upon us, stopping. His tall leather boots, fitted to his calves, ended at the jeans taking up the rest of his lower half, puckered above by a tucked-in kimono revealing a slit's opening to his chest. His sandy gaze turned to me.

"May I help you?" He said, cleaving the first aid kit between both hands. The red plus on the front took up the middle of the bag. He had a nice, soft voice. He struck me as the type that didn't yell. I smugly flippered Lloyd with my hair. What's funny is that Lloyd looked canoodled out of his own wits. He was shorn off by staring at Yuki the She-man.

"Where are you off to?"

His wide eyes nictitated. He literally looked like he had doe eyes _every _day, some kind of blank, giant anime gaze that wouldn't ever get erased. His eyelashes took up half his cheeks upon blinking them. "I was told to get this and return it to the infirmary for a clumsy redhead who gave himself a paper cut with a waiver. There were no remaining Band-Aids in the right wing infirmary, so I had to go to the left wing to get the other kit."

"Jay," Lloyd nodded in understanding. I cleared the hair out of my face with a blow of my breath.

"May I ask who you two are?" Yuki rearranged the kit in his hands so he could bow respectably for us. "I am Yuki Akamatsu."

"Hi, Yuki," I said, already fond of this robot by the way he was so chaste. He literally seemed not to have a clue why the sun rose and set every day. It was _hilarious. _I stuck out my hand in the traditional Ninjean way. Yuki didn't know what to do with it. After a moment, the perplexed droid awkwardly stuffed a hand into mine, his arm twisted all wrong, no longer part of a handshake but a weird cultivated arm symbol. I laughed, conceding that he could depart with the uncooperative greeting. "I'm Seiko Mitsuhide."

Yuki beamed in a friendly welcome. He looked to Lloyd. I watched the Green Ninja give a skeptical nod of hello; I guess guys were too cool for anatomical hospitality or something. "Lloyd Garmadon. Is it rude of me to ask that you're a guy, right?" I elbowed Lloyd's up-front question, glad that he'd asked it instead of me. "Sorry, I'm just confused…"

Yuki shook his head. "I am asked that question more often when I appear in public. I am not offended. Yes, I am of the male gender. I am not trying to portray myself as a woman; believe it or not, I was unfortunately born with these features, and given them again by Dr. Juliens."

"So you ain't no drag queen? _Nice, _Yuki!" I liked him. He wasn't giving me any spiffy vibes. He was pure in his aura just like Zane.

He didn't give me a reaction. That's when I saw his eyes doing the same thing Rikku's did: they were focusing and unfocusing. A chill skulked up my spine. I wondered why that was a constant thing with these robots—"Hey, why are your eyes doing that?" I asked. Better to be up front about it.

Yuki touched his cheek lightly. "They are perceiving lies, as well as signs of distress, to warn me about danger in my subjects. It helps me determine what might happen in ten seconds."

"So _every second, _your eyes do that?"

They moved. "Affirmative."

It was creepy, but a nice skill. It would be cool if I had that ability, too, so I could whoop ass when someone thought they were more clever than me with their lies. Lloyd's crossed arms were tugged on by _moi._ "Why don't _your _eyes do that?" I asked. He rolled his eyes, but never answered me.

"I must get back to the right wing." Yuki pulled the kit into both hands again, opened his digits across the surface, and nodded to each of us once. He had a slick way of cutting things off, didn't he? "It was a pleasure meeting the both of you. I look forward to seeing you around the monastery in the future." With that, Yuki walked around my left side, passing me daintily in lack of goodbye smile or any human-like trait. I waved at his shrinking back. The vanishing point in the hallway made it stretch further beyond me, a vast square that Yuki was starting to condense into.

"BYE, YUKI!" I cried. He lifted a hand to unceremoniously ratify my cry, kind of a startle because I thought he was going to do this whole formal departing thing with his conformed attitude, but he decided not to waste time to face me off. Lloyd became the center target of my attention thereupon the robot's _adieu. _I wrapped my arms around his waist, dug my chin into his chest, and twitched my nose. Lloyd curled his arms around my upper back. The feeling of my own blood warming my skin made me turn my cheek to the cotton of his jacket, the cold bar of zipper itching coolly. "Should we go find Zane?" I asked. I didn't want to abdicate myself from Lloyd's embrace, but I certainly didn't want to stand in this hallway anymore. My chin pressed into his chest again.

Lloyd took a minute to answer. "I suppose." He brushed softly my hair from my face, taking my bangs away again. "You need to pin those back," he told me. "Otherwise, the temptation to have them hang in your face seems a little too hard to handle, huh."

"Duly noted."

He took my hand in his. My heartbeat soared alongside the suction of our cupped hands meeting. "C'mon," he said, jerking his chin towards the hall. Something in his eyes stayed that I had never seen there before, a new light cracking in the dawn of a new emotion. "Let's go catch up with the others."

Challenges are always my favorite past-time. They're what make me competitive enough to try hard. I think I do better under the circumstance that I have to form a contender, with that kind of pushing, provoking me into action. I gave Lloyd's hand a confident squeeze. "Last one there is a rotten Twinkie!" I shouted. I ripped my hand out of his, taking off down the isolated hallway. I really had no clue where I was going, just that I was going to _run _with this! Yeah, I know, lame pun, lame pun. But aren't _all _puns lame?

"Hey, no fair!" I heard him shout behind me. I laughed.

A carefree feeling spread through me. _It takes more effort to feel nothing than it does to feel something, _I noted, whirling around to run backwards. "All is fair in love and war!" I called, detouring down the first doorway I came to. I stepped inside of the next shortened hallway for what looked like a Laundromat inside of a building. How much is the water bill here? There are about six hundred washers and dryers in that room. I gazed sideways in mid-run.

My body slammed into someone else's.

I was threatened of falling on my ass, but someone's hand reached out to grab my wrist, pulling me from my slanted position back onto my own feet through a strength I could _feel. _I looked down at the pair of ancient sandals, native only to museums, with black bandage wrapped around each calf. "Seiko?" I heard Lloyd's voice from behind me. I found more interesting subject matters to be had with; my eyes trailed up the slick pair of pants and matching black kimono to the long curls of golden hair spilling long over someone's shoulders, the sliver of chest permitted as a triangle mid-way down a man's chest, following leaders up to the flawless outline of a thin jaw, climbing all the way up the sculpted nose and defined cheekbones to the light, golden eyes of a ninja. A tight black mask was wrapped around his stiffened throat, used for covering his lower face, but detruded so pale lips could be seen, twisted into an annoyed curve. He pushed a long, untamed wave of golden curls over his broad shoulder and gave me a scrutinizing, hampered guise. I stared short of breath. He was beautiful, even more so than Yuki. No, Yuki was just cute in the way you looked at bunnies. _This _guy had the potential to be the supernatural love interest of many adult, M-rated novels, the ones you saw at the bookstore pictured with a half-naked woman and a shirtless, sweaty guy standing on the sea shore with their hair being all blown epically. I dribbled drool all over my chin. No, I didn't really. But in my head I did. "Who…?" in their right sorts was _that _breathtakingly attractive? Something was definitely wrong with this picture. Had I slammed into the wall, died, and gone to heaven?

"I'm Daijiro Hitoshi," he snapped irritably. "And who, exactly, might _you _be?"

* * *

**BURNING FAN QUESTION: Give me your favorite quote/s of the chapter. There's craploads to choose from. You really shouldn't have a hard time.**

**My favorite part of this chapter is Yuki. He's going to make up for stupid CAROLINE AND DANIELLE FJHSTJHSJIFNSJIRGHGUISDHRSJE efrwieuriejdnjFEHRJHEDNWIEHTDSJNDFSDF *dies* i KILL THEM BOTH IN MY BRAIN. I just don't like either of them. Not cuz they're evil, but cuz they're just stupid.**

As you can tell...I had a bad day. -3-

So since this was so long...

**Thanks. Go have an awesome day/night! **


	55. Chapter 55

**SPEEDY: **I know, they're just starting to annoy me... Lol. I know it's weird, but it's true. I don't HATE THEM hate them, I guess they were just getting on my nerves during my bad day. XD And Yuki means snow. It also means reason and valuable. These are traits that contribute to his character later on. ;P

**~~~~~IMPORTANT! ALL READERS!**

**Not that this should shock you, but in this chappie you learn that Caroline lied to you about the Reckoning. I did this on purpose.**

**...That is all.**

* * *

**CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE:  
**What the Reckoning Gave Me

Yuki found himself inside of the infirmary quicker than he thought he'd get there, descending upon Jay's incision with the precise finger of a skilled doctrine handler. He left the first aid kit spread open wide on the circular table in the corner of the room, shining with bandages of many different characteristics for specific situations, a few packaged antibiotics, antiseptic wipes, and a small wrap of lollipops, custom for Bokuyo. Yuki was fond of the little boy, and when he fell outside and scraped up his sensitive skin on the rocks outside, it was usually Yuki who fixed his small wounds. He'd spread Neosporin across the raw, cut skin and plaster a bandage appropriate enough to size across the cleaned surface. Then, because Bokuyo was "adorable"—as humans called it—Yuki would give him a small sucker to make him feel better. He bought the small kind, sorting through the individual candies to pick out the flavors that Boku enjoyed and discarding the ones he did not, finalizing the process by picking out five, wrapping them up, placing them inside of the first aid kit, and packaging away the rest until his short stock ran out. Yuki's kit was down to three.

He slicked the rectangular, flesh-toned bandage around Jay's finger, patting it down gently. The redheaded human sat on a plastic chair at the rounded table beside him—a table installed specifically for those waiting on the doctor or calling visitation on a patient, for an uncomfortable waiting room cooped in the corner of the heavily machined, white room—drummed his other hand on the table. He looked uncomfortable having the silent, unsaid-to-anyone Yuki dressing his minor injury.

Yuki was not normally a talker. He liked to keep things quiet and obey the orders he was given without complaint, remarks, or stress. All of the other robots in the whole facility had grown dependent on Yuki's silence as some kind of virtuous escape from the everyday technicalities of a normal day inside of the monastery, constantly thrumming like a brigade. Robots of all shapes, colors, sizes, and attitudes, some even unbeknownst of to Yuki until he first met them by a happening, would come into the infirmary just to catch a moment of peace. They knew Yuki would not question their stumble upon the room, and he had also become habituated to people just coming in, sitting at this very round table, and existing without conversation. This room was where Yuki spent a lot of his time. He hardly ever left. Not only was he skilled in human healing, but he was also the mechanic of the monastery's come-to. There was always somebody in need of a regularly-scheduled tune-up, someone who had a strange whirring in their chest, someone who needed a little bit of an examination at the way their battery was dying quicker than it should've. Yuki was kept busy on a daily basis.

But Yuki didn't talk. Not to the robots. They just didn't understand how he felt. They all said that a droid with emotion was an unlucky droid clinging to mortality and refusing to let go of the past, someone whose head was stuck in their arse and needed to be pulled out. Gossiping among mechanical beings was hard to believe to some species, but Yuki knew, fully cognizant, that robots did indeed bend their heads and whisper-whisper over something or someone. It was not for a sense of enjoyment, in the likes, but done for the absence of other entertaining capabilities available to automata. For a long time, the topic of their duet discussions was Yuki, because Yuki was the fair robot who actually had emotions to give. Not many were gifted with such a display, but everyone considered the ability to feel a curse rather than a shot at experiencing things at most humanly possible. Yuki felt, and for it Yuki was shunned.

He no longer was the center of attention, of course, but that didn't take away the trauma that came with being branded a freak by other androids he was forced to stay with under the same dark-shingled roof and multiple-floored monastery. There was no automaton that Yuki would now converse with, other than the few-moons Rikku, but talking with him was difficult. Rikku didn't feel enough to understand the passionate way Yuki talked about things. Often, the healer had to pretend he felt nothing in order just to slip in, wedge himself a little deeper into the pathetic Clockwork Army, and be accepted. Playing as a real robot never took away the knowledge that Yuki could still brandish himself emotion deep enough to revel him a human. He associated better with the four humans that lived inside the protective, peacefully charmed walls, coming to like better Miss Maru and little Boku than the other two, one of brooding and serious demeanor and the other of someone's energy switch bore to high.

Yuki still never talked. The last words he'd said before today had taken place four days ago, when he was rubbing cream on the scar across Bokuyo's calf. His practice was broken by that girl, Seiko, coming upon him in the hallway with a friendly smile and mischievous glint in her eyes, trouble if Yuki had ever known it but feasibly fascinating to one's eye. He hadn't expected to meet _another _human in a place as quality as the main hallway, and especially one that looked like…_her. _He shook his head to clear it. _No. Stop it, Yuki, _he told himself, biting his lips together. When he'd looked at her, he'd done his best to cover up his surprise, biting back the cry that had been ready to spring out of his throat at the first look into her eyes. He had been aware that Wu was bringing in more humans to inhabit this dump, but he had never expected someone with a blockading aura to come wreathing his time by her own accord. What Yuki had said upon leave was true: he was eager to see her again. Something about her had seemed very emotional, and with it she had revealed a hidden memory within him. He was forced to swallow it in his own sorrow. _I must not remember, _he told himself flatly, though the temptation to relapse back to a memory this deep was always quite cunning. For many years after that memory had first been made, Yuki had been marred by trauma and horrifying nightmares, even though robots were not supposed to dream. This was yet another trait that set him as an outcast from the rest of the bunch he lived amongst.

Yuki took a moment to gather himself before returning to the present.

Jay pulled his finger to his face, the creaseless wrap around his finger perfected specifically by practice. Yuki sat back in his seat. The lenses in his eyes focused on Jay's face for half a millisecond before returning out of utmost-zoomed motion, allowing Yuki to see him wholly. He folded his hands neatly in his lap, fingers hopping on the material of his dark pants in itching for something he wanted to do. "Do you want a lollipop?" He asked suddenly. The urge to talk to someone was killing him.

Jay took this at surprise. He raised an eyebrow. "No thanks, uh," he cleared his throat, "person."

Yuki's eyes picked up on the fluctuation of Jay's heart rate. It wasn't due to the lie that his eyes lied to him about, but because Jay wasn't sure whether or not Yuki was a _sir_ or a _ma'am_. He didn't take it to heart, instead rising from the chair euphorically, ready to move onto his next patient. "I am Yuki," he told Jay. Jay's legs, opened and bent to the knee, were easy for Yuki to shove aside on his way out. He said no more, for a laughter from the corner of the infirmary spoke for him.

"Yuki is often mistaken for a female," said Rikku, the front of his shirt spread open, his inner panel swung wide like a doorway parting for one to walk in, with a long chord pressed into a plug-in buried deep within his inner workings. Chaired down by a much comfier sitting, his own legs were spread with his tanned hand dangling between them. When charging up, Rikku couldn't do so much as a Sudoku, miserably constricting him to gambling away time as pawns in a poker game against life. Yuki had been told the poor man had passed out in the middle of a crucial second. He turned past the tall silver machines corded with wires and decorated with variegated buttons to look at the _real _picture, his more fascinating of tasks in all of his robotic second chance. The barred bed robbed from a hospital, clerked in the middle of the room by locked wheels, held guard to a pregnant mother starting the first stages of her long, perturbing labor. At both of her sides were two men, obviously worried about her, sitting to their own seats stolen from the round table. The one on Yuki's side was called 'Kai' by Rikku, attired in a red sweatshirt and long black hair with golden eyes, was holding tightly onto the girl's hand—Nya, as she was called by Eron, the robot who'd brought her in—and pulling it to his lips every few seconds. Her face was tightly clenched by pain in her contractions. Yuki had seen earlier that Jay had politely tied up her long hair back from her face in a messy excuse for a ponytail. Slick sweat drizzled down her face.

The boy on her _other _side was a little more distant than Kai. He lounged in his own chair, stretched cat-like, in a predatory way that Yuki's sensors didn't like. They flashed red X's in the corner of his vision at forewarning there was an issue sitting in the chair across from him. The boy's dark and brooding attitude carried into his dressings. Dark clothing, dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin—he came with everything that Yuki had once treated to be a threat, but he knew emphatically that the one titled Cole was not a hazard he should be eliminating. Yuki moved to the front of Kai's sidelined chair, parallel with the bed, to politely greet the new mother. Nya's feisty eyes didn't settle on him for longer than a few seconds before taken over by a loud grunt of pain. "This _hurts," _she groaned. Visibly her nails dug into Kai's hand. "It hurts like nothing I've ever felt before."

"I'm sorry," Yuki heard Cole whisper. The one mistaken as a danger wouldn't meet anyone's eyes directly, coronating the floor as the best thing to stare at. He had to be the father, then. It explained the white sheen Yuki observed spreading across his cheeks, blanking out his bronzed face into something scared.

Nya's painted nails dug into Kai's hand. He winced. Yuki flashed his eyes back onto the sweating woman. "I am sorry to tell you that this pain will last for many hours to come," Yuki told her. "Typical labors last for as minimal as thirteen hours. Lucky few get something lower than that."

Nya squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out that ugly truth. Yuki knew the feeling of not wanting to accept something that awful. He was not misfortuned with being a woman—although genetics wanted to see him be cast out as one—to firsthand know the way labor felt, but by the tormented look on her face it was not a beautiful thing, not like the conceiving process of _getting _the baby she was about to have. Yuki crossed his wrists over each other.

Cole leaned forward then. His elbows rested against his knees, and his eyes told a story that was soulful, presaging a hidden past that Yuki was unconscious of. He wanted to say something. His clasped hands rested, knotted, against his thinned lips, eyes shut tightly. "That's for human babies, right?" He asked, catching Yuki off guard.

"Affirmative."

Cole's silver eyes blinked, then met Yuki's full on, staring at him zealously. He wanted Yuki to understand something he was thinking, but Yuki's robotic abilities were limited to mindreading . "What if the baby isn't human?"

Yuki was not surprised by this. In a way, the healer had already gathered that the father of this child was not human by the way he was sitting and the way his eyes were glinting feverishly. He held that look of a caged lion as it paced between barred ends, looking for a way out. "You will have to explain to me what this baby is in order for me to diagnose a more accurate labor period."

Cole closed his eyes, shutting Yuki off from the silver stare he'd been pinned underneath. He didn't feel bothered discreetly under the weight of a gaze that pointy. He'd only ever felt buggish under the microscopic judgment of one's eyes when he was being eschewed by his fellow droids. "The baby's a vampire," he admitted. "Vampire babies grow a little quicker than humans do, which explains why Nya's a month early. If the growth of the child is that significant in her due date, does that mean it's even _more _significant when it comes to what time she has it?"

Before Yuki could figurate a response to that, Nya's head snapped to the side, chest heaving with flared nostrils that could've been induced by the pain or by her lover's words. "It's not an _it, _Cole," she snapped, harassed by the pain. "She is a _she." _

Cole's eyes flickered to Nya's, giving her a soft smile behind his white knuckles. "I know, sweetheart," he whispered, not in a haughty way but more of a thankful breath of words. Without meaning, he reached out for her with one hand and took hers, clutching the white blanket stretched over her taut stomach, in his.

Yuki had already completed mulling over the information provided by the vampire father, but everyone had words on their mind more important than his—at least to them. Jay sidled up to Kai's flank, one hand stuffed in his pocket, the other treating his taste buds to one of Yuki's lollipops. Yuki gave him a smile worthy of a million dollars. The cash climate was declined with a shrug. "So, have you picked out a name yet?" Jay asked her, tugging his hidden hand from his jeans to nudge Nya's belly with his knuckle, relaxed. Nya took a breath through puckered lips.

"I have," she said, throwing a regretful stock in Cole's direction. "Sorry," she added.

"Nonetaken."

Jay pulled the pink lollipop out of his mouth. "WELL?" He asked. "What is it?"

Nya's face turned a little pink around the cheekbones. Yuki rubbed his arm out of habit; he actually had no ability to touch things and feel them. He often had mishaps with touching hot things and burning away his fingers before someone told him his flesh was melting. She touched her stomach, cradled underneath the blanket, with tenderness. "Well," she mused, "I was kind of thinking of the name Rie Tanaka. In honor of Cole's Japanese roots." She turned her cheek to the pillow so she could smile at him.

There was a beat of silence as this sunk in. Yuki thought this name was perfect. It sounded pretty to his ears, but the hesitation of the audience was a little strange—it wasn't _that _bizarre a name. If anyone's name was bizarre, it was Yuki's.

Jay broke the interesting silence first. "Wait a sec," he said, spinning his lolly in a circle, "did you just say _Ree? _Like, the word that rhymes with _pee?" _Kai slapped Jay in the side, doubling over the candy thief for a consequent jump of time. "No, I'm serious. Ree?"

"R-I-E. _RIE. _Not _ree."_ Nya's voice lowered to poorly imitate Jay's. She gave him a dirty look that turned sourer by the second. "And I thought it was pretty. Sorry if you don't agree with me, here. I don't recall you being the one taped to a hospital bed with excruciating pain in your vajayjay, do you?"

Kai burst into laughter. Cole tried to hide his chuckles, but Yuki saw his shoulders shaking behind his balled fist. Even Rikku joined in from an eavesdropper's perspective. Jay turned red to the roots of his red hair.

Cole squeezed Nya's hand, pulling himself closer in the seat towards her, resting at her side more fittedly. His eyes smiled brightly for her to grow with, bloom with. Something brightened passed through them, wrapped around them invisibly to pull them closer as a couple, capturing each other in a sharing, riveted gaze. It was impossible, however, not to notice the dark rings starting to appear underneath the father's eyes, half-moons of exhaustion—or perhaps something much more fearsome. Yuki wondered where the strange skin infection came from. "I think Rie is a _beautiful _name," Cole murmured, and without cause buried his face in her shoulder. His face was hidden by the light colored pink fabric of her shirt, a sudden contrast to the gloom his hair was dyed with. Yuki smiled. He sensed the sadness within the father's heart.

"I am apologetic to break this up," Yuki said, bowing slightly to portray his true solace, bred feverishly out of anxiety. Cole raised his head, but not airborne, putting his cheek to sleep against Nya's arm. His face became tired—as if he were the one who had civilized rights to feel such things. Jay stuck his lolly into his mouth, eyed Yuki from the corner of his; Kai's mouth twisted into a half-frown, eyebrows ducked. "But I have an answer to your question. I have approximated the time it might take for her labor to complete."

The white stick jutting from the corner of Jay's thin lips averted sides. "Spit it out," he coughed from around the circle clotting his air passage.

Yuki bowed again. It was a tradition of respect back in the old household that Yuki had come from before he was tainted by Arachnaeus, harvested by accident when he grabbed an herb dawdling in the woods for a specific medicine, finding his finger pulsing and bitten after stabbing it against something hard on the plant's stem. To express your statements, one had to bow when subjecting an important message. It was habit. "I have estimated it will only take another hour before the birthing process is ready," he said.

Cole closed his eyes. Now that Yuki stared at him shamelessly, the vampire was beginning to look sick. He was not the only entity in the room picking up on it; the only one who didn't notice was Rikku, amiably doodling with his fingernail something into the black sealing coating around the thick charging cord. Jay's worried facial stature took up with the nervous tapping of his freed thumb against the hard pocket of his jeans, concealing his four other fingers within. Yuki's eye sensors detected it the minute his levels of adrenaline shouted. "Hey, uh, Cole," he said. The vampire's eyes snapped open and directly zeroed in on Jay's blushing face. The silver moons were liquidic. Yuki had never seen someone's eyes in such a manor, but then again, he'd never met a vampire before, either. Jay reached for his sleeve and dragged the blue material off his wrist, exposing the blue veins woven underneath his skin. The second the vampire's eyes honed in on the hints of blood circulating underneath his friend's skin, something in his face changed. The dark circles beneath his eyes turned a shade of faded red; his liquid eyes became solid; the olive skin of his face turned pale white, and strange _cracks, _like veins suddenly unprotected, spread from underneath his eyes down his cheeks. Yuki had never seen anything like it before. He admired the transformation from afar—until a second later, Cole grabbed handle of himself, and his face reverted back to normal. He squeezed his eyes shut. "No," he decreed flatly.

Jay rolled his eyes. "You're dying of hunger over there. Just take a little. Enough to keep you going."

"I won't feed from you," his friend hissed. "That's the end. Period."

Yuki sensed the door being thrown open before it actually did. He swerved around to see Zane Montgomery, of all people, floating into the room with elegance and grace. The last Yuki had seen him, it was the day the Reckoning was won, watching the Clockwork Army's leader rise tall above the corpses of his brothers and many humans with an empty face, in his hands a gun. It was a gruesome sight before him, both of the land painted with blood and his friend's face splattered with it, a weapon of mass destruction cradled in his blood-stained palm. The memory he'd been trying so hard to banish was now rising above him, stronger than ever before at the sight of their leader, taking over—Yuki's mind flashed backwards to that day uncontrollably:

_The meadow was dappled with fallen, ungraced bodies, made of both robotics and flesh and bone alike. The grass was torn by the scripture of dug-in boots, cracked sculls leaving remnants scattered for miles, pieces of chords and wires and severed fingers, feet, hands, heads rolling around. The sky, heavenwards, was black with nighttime, scattered with stars that relentlessly continued to twinkle, despite the war that had broken out underneath of them. It was like God was telling the surviving robots below that he couldn't care for such creatures characteristic to the devil, sinuous because they had cheated death by being rebuilt as automatic humanoids rather than letting themselves be taken by heaven—or hell. The humans that had fought against the Clockworks were all dead and strewn without grave around the meadow. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, daughters, sons—they all were dead…because of the Clockworks. All gone. Massacred by a race so fearsome of having their own family eliminated that they assured themselves as completely safe forever._

_For miles, all Yuki could see was calamity. Everything was ruined by it. Even though no one here was found vexatious with emotion, grief bubbled up in his throat, ready to take him over at the first break of dawn in the morning. He hadn't wanted this. He hadn't wanted any of this to begin. The mass destruction of half the town to come at the first sight of a red moon—all Yuki had been was a healer, living in his small home with his mother. He hadn't been VIOLENT, and he had certainly never been aimed for war. He healed the hurt, not hurt the healed. He was not a vice versa person when he was human. But as a robot, he was just the follower of someone more important than him, as usually was with him; he didn't have the guts to stick up for himself, and he didn't have the guts to work on his own. He needed orders. That important robot that Yuki was slave to was named Zane Montgomery, the first of the Clockwork Army ever created into existence, and the initiator of the Reckoning. All of this happening had been on Zane's consensus, on his own thoughts—admittedly, the humans would've had it coming for the way they stampeded their small farmland and killed at least fourteen of their robots, if not for the sacrifices that had to be made in regret for a past action—because he was not willing to just move away where the humans wouldn't follow. Yuki knew how traumatized Zane had been by the last bullet fired on the day the humans intruded their home; he had been standing right next to the fourteenth victim when the loud, shooting metal killer drove straight into the panel and damaged the central working system to total fail. Yuki had not been there, but from the descriptions of his witnessing clockwork family, Zane had ran up to the murderous human, a crazed look in his eyes, and ripped the gun straight from the man's arms, and driven the butt into the tenderness of his temple. Zane had then, out of anger, shot the man twenty times in between the eyes, even after he was long dead to prove his point. He killed the rest of the four stampeding humans with that same gun. _

_Yuki had come back to the destroyed household in fear. The attack had taken place at night, when Yuki had slipped out of the house under everyone's nose, hoping to avoid being questioned where he was going and also for fear of people discovering the truth of his whereabouts. He had returned to the sight of his friends all standing in a large blob outside of their kicked-in home, staring at the slowly-dying sanctuary with their memories crumbling around them. Yuki had run to them with fear chaining his heart to the rocks of Andromeda's dying place, like the kraken was coming for _him _rather than the sweet-faced, beautiful princess. Everyone had turned to look at Yuki with anger. The silence after his question—_what happened?—_hanging in the air between he and all seventy of them, heavy on his shoulders, breaking enough to push him down. Through the crowd, with the infamous gun still latched in his hand, Zane had shoved past everyone. Yuki remembered his face to be smeared with blood, his hands to be coated in third skins, unveiled with his true insides: anger, and focus of hate. Yuki had shriveled away from Zane automatically. "Where were you?" the robot had spat in his face. "Why weren't you here?"_

_At Zane's tail had been Carolyne Juliens, her face ashen. Yuki had looked around the circle of droids before focusing on Zane again. There was no sound. "I-I was taking a walk," he'd stammered._

_Zane didn't look like he believed it. It was a lie, of course. Yuki had not been walking to admire the space of night; he'd been walking to _get _somewhere, somewhere he wasn't going to tell. Zane had burned down their house with a single match that night, leaving the reminder of who was in charge resounding in their brains for life. That very night—the night the two-month Reckoning began—was just the catalyst of what was yet to come._

_Yuki stared out at the land of dead bodies before him. How had it come to this, just by Zane's thirst for revenge? _

_There were not many of the Clockworks left. Just a few sum, but Yuki couldn't count. In his heart was a terrible anxiety, washing over him like the bitter cold of the night stinging the metal chest plate and armor skinning his body, The gun he'd been forced to use was clasped, shaking, between his hands, but now, he tossed it aside, throwing it against the bloody ground. His anxiety, his worry, his fear and pain were starting to become an awful gush coming from his central creation, the trip wire of his governing system coming alive. They'd always thought it was a faulty wire that made him the way he was. Zane stood at his side, scanning the river of devastation he trailed in his wake, face clear, arms full of weapons, chest and back protected by his own metal breastplates. His icy eyes beamed through the fog of gun smoke and overpowering scent of power that daubed victory. He stared hard at Yuki. There was something in his eyes—something that he wanted Yuki to understand, but the excited droid ripped off his metals and started screaming. All heads turned to him. Including Carolyne's, poised at Zane's side shamelessly. _

_Yuki tore off his arm brace and started running. He abandoned his broken crossbow at the earth beneath his feet. His heart would've pounded if he had one. Weaving through every dead body, robot and human, he could find, he searched the faces of the deceased, looking for a particular pair of bright blue eyes, white skin, and midnight hair. He was crying real tears. He screamed again. All of his friends would think he was going insane, but—he didn't care. He cried out again. "MITSUKO!" He screamed into the night, crying her name with the outpour of his tears. "Mitsuko!" _

_He knew he did wrong when he fell in love with a human. It went against the code of his brothers and sisters, vowing to damn their lives with the oath of murdering humans rather than making peace with them—or much less making love to them, as Yuki had once done. He had done the unthinkable, but it was difficult to undo his love for her. He knew it was wrong when Zane's knowing face spat omniscient understanding. He knew it when Zane led the first attack on the Fireman's Circle army, he knew it when women were starting to be drafted, and he knew it when he was falling further and further for her when he refused to excuse their relationship. He knew loving her was against every rule he had. But he loved her, as a human, and as a robot, and as whatever god-damned devil he was now, he knew it—if anything he would know that. Not how to heal people, not how to save people, not how to _kill _anyone. Just to love her. That was all he needed._

_"MITSUKKOOOO!" he wailed. He knew she was here. He could feel her, somewhere nearby, bleeding, or maybe dead—he didn't want to think of the worst. _

_Then, he saw her._

_Reliving the moment inside of his memory made every part of Yuki's body hurt. Bathed in moonlight, the sight of milky moon-glow once drawing him closer to her rather than shoving him away, had her drenched in blood from the slice across her abdomen that pulsed blood worse than the beat of an old Japanese song they used to play inside of Yuki's home on the bamboo flute. Her robes were torn wide by the cut of a heavy blade and passion to kill, no matter who fell at the hands of her killer. He knew it was her by the way her white skin stuck out amongst the dark, dirtied grounds where blood ran like a river in the middle of a smoky, black night. He ran for where death reeked and blood stank of metal. Mitsuko's young face, so precious, was speckled with freckles of dark, russet-colored liquid, her mouth drizzling that of the same color from the very corner down her chin. Her head was turned sideways, but love knew each other no matter what position; Yuki collapsed at her side. Searching for a way to stop the bleeding, Yuki found that Mitsuko's skin was still warm, suggesting she had not been dead for long. He grabbed onto her dress, pasted to her body by its own natural glue, and called to her again to keep her awake while he worked. _He'd tried so hard to keep her safe_…_

He was a failure.

_"Mitsuko," he said, swallowing hard at the lump in his throat. He ripped away at her dress to make slices appropriate for a tourniquet, "do you…do you remember"—Yuki looked at the deep wound and winced. This would need medicine. He had to take her back home, where he would fix her—"the day we first met? You were in the woods, picking berries for your mother's cobbler," he said. Yuki ripped off his sleeve to help for the pieces her dress didn't provide and started coiling it around the knot at her bare waist. He pulled it tightly. If Yuki stared fixedly enough, he could make out the slight rise and fall of her chest. She was still alive. He had to keep talking, just for Mitsuko. "I was looking for the right herbs to my medicine. We both were at the same bush, looking for the same thing. I reached into the depths to grab at a large berry, and so did you from the other side; our fingers touched, and we saw each other's faces from over the bushel cruelly dividing us. I fell in love with you the moment I saw you, you know," Yuki told her. He reached underneath her barren body, his arms curling under her legs and neck, but he never got there. Just as Yuki had been to rise her from the cold ground, her silks dangling, torn, beneath her, Mitsuko had made a noise of protest. She turned her face towards him, and with shadows dancing over her features, Yuki had begun to cry harder. Her eyelids lifted halfway to show her beautiful, aquamarine eyes, finding him with a soft smile of reddened, cracked lips. Everything inside of Yuki crumbled._

_"I remember," she choked. Her breathing was nothing more than a whisper through a wheeze. Yuki leaned over her body so she wouldn't have to try so hard to look him in the eye. Upon reaching down to touch her elegant cheek, Yuki discovered her face was wettened by tears glistening over her eyes, glassy and dying. He smiled through his agony. Seeing her like this was his fault. If only he had looked harder for her among the mass of peoples, if only he had tried more roughly to get Zane to call off the attack—he was nothing more than a fool's boy, a lie written in the dust. Even if he wasn't made up of war, he was made up of love, and that was enough to protect someone, until it came to the real thing instead of just some inner fantasy. If he lost her today…He choked. He couldn't think like this. She wouldn't die. He'd make sure she didn't. _

_Mitsuko reached towards him with shaking hands to stroke his cheek. "I'm going to bring you home," Yuki said hurriedly, ignoring the tears crawling down the bridge of his nose. He turned from her back to the tourniquet and pulling his arms underneath her failing body. "It will take a lot of bed rest, but I can save you—" Yuki's grasp had only made it to the tender space beneath her knee before Mitsuko grabbed ahold of his long white ponytail and gave it a gentle tug. No matter where they were, what they were doing, how they were interacting or who was around, that was always Mitsuko's sign of telling Yuki to stop, to slow down. He tended to get worked up and excited a lot, but this was not the time to be pulling on his famous ponytail. Yuki continued to move her at the pace like a doctor would, carefully maneuvering in known that she was injured and needed to be transferred with care, the tug on his hair becoming more persistent by the second until finally Mitsuko said, inches before she was about to be lifted, _

_"Yuki, stop it. You're hurting me."_

_Frozen, Yuki looked to Mitsuko's beautiful face. Smiling tenderly even though she was dying, Mitsuko tilted back her head and looked at the stars, eyelids becoming heavier by the seconds she looked at the sky. Yuki was reminded that he did not fall in love with her because of her beauty; Mitsuko was made of blank, snow-white skin, red lips, deep blue eyes, and midnight black hair, all things that made her so unique to herself. Her soul was what Yuki loved the most. She was everything that could ever matter to him, from the way she was the other half of his heart to the soft way she laughed instead of giving out loud bouts. "They're so beautiful," Mitsuko coughed. "The stars at night."_

_"Mitsuko, we have to get you moving. I'm sorry if it hurts, but if I'm going to save you—"_

_"I don't want to be saved." It was not said roughly, but in a way so quiet and sorry that Yuki had to pause his work, unable to continue with the weight of those words settling on his shoulders. Misguidance, deep withstanding, treaded thick senses inside of the body of a mourning droid, grabbing his neck and choking him with a force he didn't know existed. Mitsuko didn't want to be saved? How could she not? If she left, she'd be leaving Yuki to the wolves—or should he say Clockworks! He wouldn't be able to live past his first hit of grief. He couldn't let her die. Disbelief made him shake his head, returning to lifting, but another tug at his ponytail froze him. "I'm just tired, Yuki," she whispered, "and I just want to fall asleep forever."_

_"That's Death, Mitsuko," he said hysterically, shaking his head. He pulled her into his arms. "Not sleep."_

Tug, tug. _What once was a personal motion was now becoming the bane of Yuki's existence. "Yuki, I don't want to come home."_

_"No. No, you have to. You have—you can't _leave _me—" _

_Mitsuko closed her eyes. Yuki knew by experience with those departing that she was not, in fact, a dead woman yet, but rather filing herself a resume for becoming one. He knew that losing her, though, would be the worst thing to ever happen to him. He couldn't bring himself to let her go. He couldn't. She was everything to him; she was what the sun rose and set on, the reason for the continuance of the pathetic life that Yuki somehow sustained living. To lose the light that broke the darkness would be…ending for him. _

_"If you can't make that choice, _I _will." _

_The voice. Yuki whirled around to find, standing behind him, Zane, his face unmitigated. He was the grim reaper standing before Yuki himself, graduated enough to have a degree in killing, the signature to finalizing it written by the death of each of his victims. Zane had become a ruthless, cunning, vengeful machine out for murder on plenty of humans who needn't be attacked; the preponderance of them didn't even know the robots existed until that day the Reckoning ended their lives. It was a war untold by history textbooks for the lack of knowledge on the human's better part; the studies called it 'the Great Circle Massacre,' but the culprits of the crime had never been found. There were no fingerprints, no unidentified drops of blood, no nothing that would lead the human law enforcement towards the robots. The Clockworks removed every single one of their dead, piled them into a hauling truck, and carried each of them away to be disposed of. Investigations in tracking the real murderers ran cold. The Clockworks didn't come with classifying fingerprints anymore; their skin was toneless. They didn't bleed, they only broke, interpreting them unable to be found. The amount of warriors killing from the mortal side were kept in a close cult of only few. Thankfully a cult that kept to itself rather than exhibiting its intentions around the city, although unfortunately dragging in innocent people to be used as sacrifices, as collateral, like Mitsuko had been. There were rumors among the Fireman's Circle community that instead of blood from the attackers, the constabulary had found ample amounts of oil. That would be true if a weapon belonging to the opposing side had cut into an important part of the bot, and Yuki didn't remember ever treating a bot with a broken tube. _

_Zane was not himself anymore, but that wasn't the problem. Mitsuko was dying in Yuki's arms, the one girl in this world that he loved more than he could ever love anything, that of including his profession, and Zane was busy being an avenging bastard rather than to care about what Yuki felt. Yuki didn't care if Zane didn't care, and he didn't care if Zane knew about what he had with Mitsuko. He was not ashamed of loving a human. Especially Mitsu. _

_His heart was already scored deeply by knowing Mitsu was dying. But what came next was never forgiven. And it was also never forgotten. _

_Zane pulled from the waistband of his trousers a fine, glinting blade already stained with his kills. "I knew what you were doing all along," he said, examining the blade carefully. "I knew you were seeing a human."_

_Yuki threw his body in front of Mitsuko's, blocking her from Zane's reach. "I _won't _let you touch her," he growled. He'd never let anyone hurt Mitsu again. ESPECIALLY not Zane._

_Zane let the blade fall to his side, giving Yuki nothing. He tapped the flat side against the leg of his pants. "Oh, I already knew that, too," he said, and his eyes fell on something above the healer's head. A sense of dread coursed through Yuki's body. "That's why I brought Ripsaw." _

_The burly, muscled dark liability to Yuki's noble act grabbed him from behind, pulling him away from Mistuko's body. Ripsaw was tall, large, wide, and just about everything when it came to being a bodyguard, intent to do as he was told. His black eye patch covered the eye he'd had torn out on accident. He stared down at the feeble, un-muscled Yuki with a grave look to his wide face. "I'm sorry, Yuki," he said, enveloping Yuki's entire bicep in his hands, able to overlap his own fingers with lack of muscle. The heartbroken healer began to scream again, but this time in fear. _

_He told Mitsu to run. He told her to run as he fought against his captor, watching his own brother step towards his lover with his metallic murderer violate his hands. Mitsu had to have known what was happening to her, but couldn't have had the strength to do everything Yuki was telling her to do—she looked into Zane's cold eyes, not frightened by his wake. Zane blinked. "I will leave no survivors," he said, and with a precise hand, ignoring Yuki's screams and struggle, flicked the knife blade taciturnly through Mitsuko's heart. The aim was perfect, killing her almost instantly. She was dead within seconds._

* * *

Damon paced around Wu's respectable living environment, his neatly-organized room for one. His heavy rut-wearing in the middle of the wooden floor might do a little wear and tear onto the cleanliness, however. From his sleeping mat on the floor, Wu sipped daintily at his tea in the hospitality of candlelight. At least his room was very much like his old one in the recent monastery. He kept his legs crossed, back straight, and eyes focused on the scrolls laid out before him. He wouldn't let Damon's amateur pacing distract him from what really was happening.

"But if only seven can fight," Damon mused, stepping back and forth again and again. Wu took another sip at his tea and remained his eyes on the ancient, cracking tan paper before him. The pictures and runes stabbed his eyesight. "Then that means it eliminates the Clockwork Army as our ally."

Wu shook his head, replacing his consumed tea with another fill from the warm teapot at his side. "No, they can still be our allies," he said. "They just can't help us fight in the Great Battle."

Damon stopped in the middle of the room, tapping his lips with one free hand, keeping the other at his tailbone. They'd been discussing this for a while now—they'd just been disturbed by Zane to be told the good news of Nya's labor. It was heartwarming, but Wu was more absorbed on trying to unfold a few new tidbits of information with his brother. "But then, where do we stand? Are we part of the Seven?" Damon looked to Wu for guidance. It was funny that the older brother was turning to his younger for help rather than vice versa.

The Seven was a difficult process to explain. Wu shook his head. "I don't think we are," he said, pointing to the scroll. What it foretold was a picture of the five Elemental Ninja: Kai, of Fire; Cole, of Earth; Zane, of Ice; Jay, of Lightning; and Lloyd, of Creation. It would make sense that the two Spinjitzu sons, Damon and Wu, would add to that total with Damon's Dark Lightning and Wu's balance of all the elements. But it appeared that neither of them, according to destiny, had an impact on the Great Battle. If it were so, he'd see his image, as well as his brother's, staring back at him from the scroll. He saw neither. Instead, what the prophecy foretold was of two other well-abilitied individuals to complete the circle of the Seven. One of the larger images was painted with a deep set black ink. The picture of the first one was surrounded by shadow and gloom. This was the one somebody that Wu felt he'd already figured out the name to, even if once-upon-a-time Damon had fit the image. Judging by the overpainting of darkness, it had to be Seiko, who reveled in it. The other, though, was still a mystery, and that's what they were trying to figure out.

The painting was of someone colored in _gray. _It was no face, just a person drawn in gray. Nothing otherwise. It could've been ANYONE. Even the mailman.

Wu took yet _another _drink of tea. Damon resumed pacing. "So if we're not it, then it could only mean that black cloud could be that girl. Whatsherface."

"Seiko."

"Yes, whatever. That one." Wu noted that Damon's voice skipped and went quickly when it came to talking about her. Did she make his brother nervous? "But what about the gray one? Does that stand for something? Do you know who it could be?"

Wu paused. "No," he said after a moment. "But I do know that when my students and I revisited the Temple of Light on the Dark Island for the final time, I found something I told none of my students about." He didn't mention anything about Misako, worrying for his brother. Instead, he edited her out and put Julien in the equality. "Julien and I found it in the safe where our father had hidden the Golden Mech, as the others were walking out. It was a package from our father. He knew one day either you or I would come upon it, and he left us a bag of these scrolls." Wu gestured to the many spread before him, centering around the Great Battle, the Seven, the Void, and even the concept of Yin and Yang. It seemed his father was far more wise than Wu would ever be. "Along with, well, these."

Damon's brows lifted as Wu hauled himself to his feet and slowly walked towards the wardrobe in the back corner of his open room. He kept it locked, reclaiming the key from a chain he kept around his neck and hearing the tumble of the lock from inside. Wu parted the wardrobe's doors, and Damon moved closer at the sight of seven suits hanging from the bar at the top. Though the Temple of Light had given the Ninja brand-new suits to wow everyone with, his father had had something more classy in mind. The familiar colors all burned brightly from the rack: red, blue, white, black, and green. However, there were two others sitting there, collecting dust, were two others. They were colorless, almost completely gray with bore. Wu didn't understand why his father would do something like that. It just…didn't make sense. Gray?

Damon snorted. "Father always was mysterious," he agreed with Wu's thoughts exactly. "But they don't look like ninja suits to me."

"That's because they're _not." _Wu sighed. "They're just kimono sets without detail."

Damon stared at Wu for a long, hard second. "I think Father fell one too many times off of the Golden Peaks," he said before whirling on his heel to continue pacing. It was disrespectful, but Wu chuckled. There was some mystery to this Seven aspect, and his father seemed to have a plan in mind, whether it was obvious or not. He wondered at what time should he bring Kai in to discuss this with. It seemed like lately, the fire ninja was all that Wu could rely on to be mature. Kai had definitely grown since Day One.

This was going to take some time figuring out. Wu returned back to his scrolls. This was not as easily understood as all of the other scrolls; he sighed. If only Misako were here.

Scroll-understanding plus father-understanding required time, sweat, energy, unwavering devotion, and definitely another hot pot of tea. He hoped Zane hurried back...

* * *

Yuki stared at Zane now. The memory came flooding back on him, full force, taking him over with a sense of rage and betrayal that he couldn't contain. His arms were cocked behind his back, hiding something; a weapon? For some reason, Zane's face was lightened, sweet, and abnormally happy, but Yuki knew who the real Zane was; this was a lie he colored himself just for the benefit of others. He'd seen firsthand what he could do. His chest did not need to rise and fall for everyone to know that he was becoming as hysterical as he had been the day that Zane murdered Mitsuko. Eyes the color of bland ice fell on Yuki with a glint of emotion behind them, although that had to be because Zane must've perfected looking like he actually cared over the years. It was a lie.

Jay turned around to see Zane as the nindroid greeted everyone. He looked at Yuki but didn't seem to care enough to pretend he knew him; that would be atypical if he actually acknowledged Yuki's inhabitance of the infirmary for once in his lifetime. _Killer. _The murderer stopped before Jay, waved to Nya, and said, "I come bearing a present."

"Zane, we told you to stay out of here," Kai whined.

Zane's wide eyes closed with his smile. "I did not listen. I feel guilty for it, but I also came because I have something for Cole. I got it from a pretty woman named Maru." He pulled, from behind his back, a pack of potent, thickly dark red liquid, sloshing inside of the packet as he swayed it back and forth in his hands. Yuki recognized it immediately: it was a blood packet from a hospital. He dangled it juicily in front of the starved vampire's line of vision. "She said there are plenty more in a cooler somewhere. This way, you won't have to feed from us or anyone else!" Zane smiled again. "Isn't that neat?"

Yuki clenched his fists. _You're a liar, _he thought angrily. He didn't know where Zane had come from, or why he was suddenly invading Yuki's privacy, or why he acted like he knew nothing, but he knew that for once in something like thirty years, he was having his revenge spoon fed to him by fate. Zane passed along the blood packet for Cole to take hungrily within his own hands, ripping open the top where it was normally connected to a bunch of tubes for the safe transfer of the blood, and pulling the tab to his lips, hungrily sucking away at the contents. This meeting would not go without cause. What Yuki thought must've been coated to his face, for he heard Jay say his name, but his clenched fists did not allot something so sabotaging to happen. He was already equidistant into his thoughts—stopping now would be a fool's work. Yuki turned to the table next to the charger behind him and searched for something, catching it immediately.

A scalpel.

He'd tear out Zane's glass eyes. He'd shred every wire inside of his panel beyond repair, just like Yuki's heart had been. He'd avenge Mitsuko.

Ever observant, Rikku saw it happen. He must've predicted it. Yuki snatched the scalpel off the table. Time moved slowly, yet so quickly; the shout of the other Montgomery boy, hooked up to the charger, came tearing through the sounds of Cole's sucking and silence: "ZANE! LOOK OUT!"

Yuki lunged for Zane's throat.

The healer wasn't fast enough. He was knocked aside by a streak of blue, shoving him backwards into the table of tools and destroying the wood by two. Yuki fell into the clutter of silver doctor's tools like collapsing into a complete set of implements, fallen amid the pieces of broken wood and metal. Jay stood over the attacking Yuki with disbelief at someone so subtle then attacking someone so not aggravating the outbreak. They had to be friends, then. Yuki jumped to his feet and grabbed, by the leg, a part of the table, then swung it directly at Jay's stomach. The blue boy dodged and grabbed it from his hands. "DUDE!" he yelled, and tossed aside the wood. Yuki backflipped out of the way when he was come at by Kai, landing a kick in the back of the black haired head and knocking him downwards. He was then advanced upon by a very angry, very disturbed vampire, face ripped completely into that hungry stupid Yuki had seen earlier. However, Yuki was not deterred; the speed that overtook the ticked immortal came quickly, but Yuki's sensors had already picked up on that. He quickly slid underneath the leaping vampire, missing his legs by a hair, then grabbed onto the leg of the table-half that Jay had moved aside. As Cole doubled back with speed, Yuki slammed the blocky piece hard against the wall, in return shattering it, and leaving him with a pointed wooden dowel. The vampire jumped at him just before he could notice that Yuki had fashioned himself a stake out of nothing.

It drove right into his stomach.

Cole grunted and fell to the floor, clutching the hilt of the crude stake with both hands. Jay dropped beside his fallen friend, but Kai was quicker to react. He grabbed ahold of the wooden stake and pried it from the sucking of internal organs clinging to the piercing.

Yuki descended upon Zane, grabbing the traitor by the throat, slamming him against the circular table in the corner, a hideout for visitors. He could feel the moments leading up to this revenge coming to crash down on him. The face of his own victim was fearful, worried to what Yuki might do to him, and his eyes were wide, his mouth opening and reopening to try and understand. That was enough for Yuki. "You _murderer," _he growled. "You _murder—"_

Something hard slammed into the middle of Yuki's back. He cried out in pain, reflexively bending his knees and arching backwards into the arms of whomever had just hit him with a piece of wood. He felt an arm snake around his throat and pin him against the shoulder of his captor. "Thirty years is a long time to hold a grudge," hissed a voice in his ear. He dug his nails into the arm around his neck. "And yet you still haven't learned a thing, Yuki." Rikku, breaking rules by unplugging himself in the middle of a charge, pulled Yuki several steps away from the panicking Zane, allowing his friends to slip in (with a wounded vampire) to huddle around their friend. Yuki struggled to get free. _Not this again_. Loud and authoritative, Rikku's voice was solid in his ear, easily breaking the hysteria of Yuki's mind, starting to settle the ravaged thought process by his soothing voice. Yuki had been consumed by a memory and past emotions, letting them get the best of him- he realized that much. Rikku patted the boy's arms as he calmed. "I won't hurt you, because I know you're hurting inside, and I get that. You just need to take a minute to calm down. Deep breathing won't help because you don't need to breathe, but if you think, you'll get better. Now, I hate to repeat myself, even if it _was _thirty years ago that I said this to you. I'll say it one last time, and one more time only, Yuki: _no one hurts my baby brother." _

* * *

**BAAAHHHH Yuki XD**

**So that led you a little deeper into his character (except for the end; I think I fell short there on good writing, cuz I was getting occupied.) I hope I did good.**

**OH. And da Sevennnnn. Hm. Interesting... XD**

**I had fun with this chappie. **

**Bottom part sucked. **

**'Nuff said.**

**Go have an awesome day/night!**


	56. Chapter 56

**The truth will be revealed... in a filler. :/**

* * *

**CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX:  
**A Side Effect

Even in his dense times of slowly depleting his levels of anxiety and vengeance, Yuki could understand the physical needs and weaknesses of those around him. In life, his herbalist mother called it a _gift, _a title in which he carried backwards with him into his death. He was determined to maintain every ounce of being himself that he could salvage from his past, but there was nothing that would make up for the revenge that had just swallowed him whole.

He assessed what had just happened in the past twelve-point-two seconds. After being saved by his precisely-timed brother, Zane was having a minor panic attack, resting his lower body against the brim of the round table. His heaving breaths were making Yuki cringe at what an awful thing he'd done. Yuki was not normally so impulsive and violent. Zane's round eyes never settled on something for more than a second, darting quickly between the eyes of his three brothers, huddled around him in a tight-knit circle of concern. Kai and Jay remained completely intact, but Yuki couldn't say the same for the vampire he'd just staked. The wood had missed his heart by a long shot, rendering him perfectly fine, but he _had _been stabbed by the one thing that had the true potential to kill him, even if it wasn't lethal. Cole struggled to keep the heavy winces off of his face. There was a bloody hole in the front of his once-compressed shirt. The vampire healing most likely was already working to close the cut that came from instinct on a terrified robot's part, but that didn't mean the process wasn't painful. He kept his face light for the sake of his panicking friend and the other two. Kai held Zane's face in between his two large, masculine hands, head bent, eyes focused completely on the hyperventilating ex-murderer, his voice soft and liquid to Yuki's ears. "Just keep your eyes on me," he softly told his friend. Zane's open eyes struggled to stay on the golden orbs of Kai's face, but the gentle strokes of his thumbs across the high cheekbones to Zane's features were helping keep his attention pointed. "That's it. Just look in my eyes. That's all you need to see. Now, breathe. Calm. Deep breaths, Zane. You're okay. Everything is going to be okay."

_So interesting, _Yuki thought honestly, his own unnecessary breathing starting to slow at those very words. _It's as if he's hypnotizing Zane. I've never seen a panic attack dealt with in such a way; normally, I just issue a patient a glass of water and some tablets to keep them calm. _

The healer's anger and frustration slowly began to fade into the distance, blackening until only a horrible memory. He felt repulsion at himself sink in. It became a mystery to him as to what came over the robot; it was probably just the awful trauma washing over him with the memory that accompanied the sight of Zane. No, Yuki _knew _it was that trauma. You didn't get past watching the girl you loved be stabbed before your very eyes.

Rikku's arm developed a loosening effect on Yuki's throat under the shaking hands curled around the choking forearm. "You need to do the same," Rikku whispered to Yuki. Before the Reckoning, the two had been on agreeable terms. They understood each other, had whimful conversations sometimes when neither of them had anything better to do. Now, Yuki could feel a little bit of that old friendship being reconciled. "Don't think about it, Yuki. Focus on _today, _on _now, _not yesteryear. I know this sounds crazy—and believe me, it is—but that isn't the Zane you knew. That Zane…died a long time ago." The last part ended on a choked note. Not as if Rikku didn't want to believe it, but as if he was having a hard time understanding it.

Yuki watched Zane himself slowly start to grab onto reality again. His eyes no longer held a terrified hymn but rather a much calmer, if not disturbed, light. Rikku touched Yuki's shoulder with his free hand. It was a kind gesture. "It's okay, Yuki. You're alright. Zane isn't going to hurt you anymore. Hell, he can't even hurt a damn _fly." _Yuki closed his eyes. "I should've known this would happen. In a way, I did. I know how hard it is to go through what you did, and…facing the person who…did it…is extremely difficult. I know just what it's like."

There was a ring to Rikku's words, joined by the slight sagging of the man's body behind Yuki's, that told the herbalist that he _did _know. The melancholy of his tone spoke just the jagged melody that Yuki had lived on for many years. "You do?" He asked.

He felt Rikku nod. "I do. Up until recently, I thought I'd lost Ming forever to…someone I once trusted. Someone who no longer is herself. And I was so hurt. So depressed, even if it seems like sometimes I don't have a heart that should feel those things." He gave a short, crisp laugh. "But it seems like Father cared about me enough to give back what was wrongfully taken."

_Father. _Yuki had never called Julien "Father" like all the other robots had become trained to, not for lack of respectful purposes, but by the belief that a father was who conceived you. Others could argue that fathers gave you life, and Julien had simply done just that, but he could never be taught to call a man his Father if that man was not who initially created him.

Yuki was wholly aware of the Rikku and Ming love story that came with their creation. All the robots knew it. Somewhere along the line, a portion of the story had been invented for more of a dramatic twist, but before Zane had become psychotic, he'd told Yuki all about it. Unlike some of the marriages of Zane's time period, Rikku was allowed to court and marry Ming without needing an arranged marriage from the parents of both parties. They had married for love, and that was something that was done out of respect for the elder brother but not of the younger, on the parents' part. Rikku and Ming became the not-entirely-tragic Romeo and Juliet of the Fireman's Circle, whom everyone looked out upon with wishful thinking that the same might happen to them. Their romance was epic. Not soon after their marriage, the couple became pregnant, birthing to a healthy baby boy, but the baby died within the first four months of his life. Then, when Zane died shortly after, Rikku became a different man, very changed. That was when, after digging too far into what Zane shadily had been doing in his spare time before dying, Rikku discovered the truth about Julien and the recreation of Zane. Though the elder brother had thought the tales of the old man were just child's tales when Julien had come to their doorstep the day of the funeral, telling them that Zane could live again, he found it was true. Later, Rikku had contracted his own case of Arachnaeus—like the rest of the Army—and died. Ming, depressed and heartbroken, had begged Julien to recreate her into a robot so that she may live with Rikku _forever, _and committed suicide just to seal the deal.

The moment, however, of shared experiences was over. Rikku abruptly released Yuki from his grasp and stepped back. He cleared his throat, even if that was not necessary for robots' well-being. "Well, then," he said, voice a little strange. Yuki averted his eyes from the ninja huddle to look at his friend. If he still had the right to call him that, anyway. Rikku kept his dark eyes on the floor beneath him, dusting his shirt as if he'd gotten dirt on his sleeve. "Now that you're calm, you can apologize and get back to Nya."

With that, he turned on his heel, returned to the charger, opened his panel and jammed the plug right back into its fitted mount. Rikku didn't look at anyone.

Yuki supposed it was right to apologize. He turned back to the ninja, silvery white ponytail swishing back and forth against his back, just barely brushing the small. This incident would forever taint the impressions he made on the others. His ledger was not clean before this, but now it was just dirty. He kept his hands clasped before him, awaiting attention.

Zane's eyes found him long after he was calm, but he looked weary. Kai, Jay, and the lightly-doubled Cole glared at him. As Yuki predicted with his eyes, Jay was the first in reaction, catching the way his fists clenched and jaw tightened angrily. His eyes held a spark that hadn't been there before. "What the hell was that?!" He yelled, throwing up his hands. "What do you think you're _doing, _going at Zane for no reason like that? Are you insane?"

"You have to realize that we would _never _let you hurt him, no matter what your damned intentions are," growled Kai. His hands had soon left Zane's body, but they seemed unknowing of what to do with themselves with the loss of occupancy. Yuki's eyes also picked up on their unsure jitters. "He's our best friend, our little brother. I don't care who you are. You can_not _jump in here and expect to win."

"And stabbing _Cole?" _Jay waved his arm in a wide arc towards the vampire. Yuki noted that Cole now had to hold on to the back of an empty chair for support, hand splayed over the hole in his shirt. He looked paler than before. The attack had put all that small amounts of blood to waste. "Who do you think you _are, _Buffy the Vampire Slayer? You do NOT just go stabbing people—especially people prone to wood, you dumbass!"

"HEY," warned Rikku from the back corner. Yuki didn't turn to see him, but sensed he was monitoring the lecture like an adult would. He resisted a little smirk at how _Rikku _that was.

"You just freakin' traumatized him," Kai went on. His golden gaze was hard. "Now he's going to have nightmares about you coming at him like a bat out of hell."

"An _insane _bat out of hell," Jay added. He crossed his arms over his chest. "You just made Zane crap himself. Now, he's going to be hurt—and probably feel _guilty _for wondering why you don't like him. He's going to wonder what he did to make a stranger want to kill him, and that will haunt him for days!"

"Don't speak of me like I'm not standing right here," Zane said, clearly there, but his voice was weak. His eyes held a shifty sheen, but seemed upset that he was being edited out of the group. "Or it is you who will be the dumbasses. I will kick you into next week."

Though Kai and Cole exchanged a frightened look at the word _dumbasses _excavating itself from Zane's lips, Jay turned, put a hand on his younger friend's shoulder, and made a thin line with his lips. Yuki sensed he was also trying to lighten his friend's tension, the state visible by the taut string of Zane's muscles. "Zane," he sighed, patting the tense shoulder. "No."

"AND ALL OF THIS is seemingly happening right before my very eyes." The voice of Nya filtered through the tension. Yuki had forgotten about her pained arch off the hospital gurney. He shifted his hips to see sweat beading her face worse than it had before. "Can you men just keep your testosterone in check and just knock it off with the fighting, or else _I'll _be the one knocking you into next week. And _that's _a promise."

The faces of the other men seemed to soften. Light smiles ghosted on their lips.

Yuki bowed. He felt guilty for doing this in front of a woman in pain, especially to what cost it made Nya uncomfortable. He scrubbed his hands over one another. "I apologize," he said at the first chance of silence he got. The genteel essence to the ninja's faces dropped, hardening at him. _I sense they are too tight knit for my own good, _he thought. Would his apology be able to break through that a little? "It was wrong of me to do something so impulsive. I know that it was not right of me to seek revenge at such an inappropriate time." He turned and bowed to Nya. "I understand that this is not the same Zane I once knew. Perhaps if I put aside my…feelings…" Yuki blinked, hard. This was more difficult to say—the part about his feelings—than it was to man up and admit defeat. "I will be able to mend our broken friendship, if I have your permission to do so." He looked into the individual eyes of each of the four ninja, praying that be true. To have trained assassins notching him on their hit list, he'd be a dead droid, for sure.

A beat skipped through the four. They looked at one another. The words Yuki spoke seemed to be sinking in. "Revenge?" Jay repeated dubiously. A sliced eyebrow shot up.

Yuki nodded, once. It was more difficult again to say something about his past, but turning the tables, Rikku jumped to his defense. _I knew you were still back there somewhere, _he thought to his ex-silent friend. "There are painful things that lie in the past between Zane and Yuki," said Rikku. The sound of fingers drumming against a table replied. "I ask that you do not pry what these events are. It is too emotional for Yuki to discuss. He's the only robot in the Clockwork Army with the ability to feel humanity, and his memories developed by trauma and grief often spark episodes like the one you just witnessed." Yuki bent his head, almost shameful.

"Feel humanity?" Cole said. The sensors picked up on his bushy eyebrows flexing, a symbol of confusion. "I know robots are a little on the serious side, but do you mean that _none _of them can feel emotion?"

"Emotion is a dim memory that we do not feel, but remember feeling," Rikku said. "Physically, we do not feel the effects, but we remember what it was like to. Yuki, however, can feel it wholly and realistically." Yuki sensed the hand being waved at him, the vibrations hitting his back. "It is often a weakness of his. He feels it in a way that, by comparison to your previous explanations, vampires do. Everything he feels is heightened."

Kai frowned. Or, half-frowned, by the looks of it. He leaned back against the table beside Zane, crossing his feet at the ankles and plastering his hands into his pockets. Normally, this was a universal posture for male humans to be considering when they were in a deep thoughtful mode. "So how can he feel stuff then?" He nodded to Yuki. Like Yuki was a _thing. _

"Faulty wire," Yuki said sadly. _A faulty wire that makes me…different._

"Youch. Just a tiny wire in the makeup of your system can make you have episodes?" Jay shook his head, clucking his tongue. "That's gotta suck." Yuki picked up on the uncaring tone of his voice. It didn't matter to him if Yuki suffered these kind of things; all that mattered was preserving the body of his friend Zane into one piece.

"It's a side effect of existence," murmured Yuki unhappily. It wasn't meant to be heard by others, but he heavily sensed that everyone else had picked up on his soft aside.

It really was. To be damned the way that Yuki was dejected was awful, but he knew that Zane understood what it was like to be that way. After all, his human life had been a pity. Just like his robotic one.

Through the dense air, Zane turned to Cole, outstretching him a hand. "More blood would heal your wound better," he advised, speaking almost like a parent would. "Perhaps, if you would be willing to spare a couple of minutes of your time…you'd come with me to see that cooler I was talking about?"

Zane just wanted to get out of this room. Yuki had frightened him in a way that was foreign and unfamiliar to the naturopath. In their past, Zane had never even shown the slightest bit of fear, never a shaken part of faith. He was always this person who had his eye on the light at the end of the tunnel, taking any path in order to get there, costs discarded. This was a new side to the boy that Yuki had never seen before—but then, Rikku had also said this was a different Zane. _How _could it be a different Zane yet look like a clone reborn out of the old one? He had never thought in a million years that_ he, _a lowly herbalist from a small town, would scare someone so endless and homeward bound as the Montgomery child into fleeing the scene.

Cole saw the desperation in his friend's eyes. His own silvery orbs softened. After looking to Nya for heartwarming permission, he smiled softly Zane, but through pain that was visible even in the gesture. "Sure," he grunted. The vampire straightened on his feet.

Zane was eager to leave. He whispered thanks to his brothers, then, with Cole slowly emerging at his side, escaped through the open door as Yuki knew he would, and did not blame him for. Cole didn't refrain from throwing a dagger-eye backwards at Yuki—a warning.

_Never again, _his eyes said, _will you hurt him like this. _

* * *

**~Yang~**

"You're kidding," I said in disbelief, staring straight ahead at the Cole standing before me. My eyes felt a little wide. Seiko and I, after having a run-in with that weirdo Daijiro—he have me the creeps. Something about him was off—who brushed us off like lint, ended up bumping into Cole and Zane on our exploration through the gigantic monastery walls. There was a freezer-cooler stuffed in the room just out the side of a secondary laundry facility (yeah, there was a SECOND one!) where I found the ex-nindroid huddled in the corner with Cole disturbedly sipping from a packet of blood. It was the kind you got from blood drives. In fact, the freezer-cooler was _full _of them. Zane told me a woman named Maru had stocked up on them just for our special houseguest, despite the fact that I'd already been told she was a demon butcher with vampires included in the mix. She apparently was on friendly terms with just Cole—and Cole only, no exception to Maya, who had yet to appear at the monastery with my biological mom. From there, Cole had told me about what had happened in the infirmary Nya was staying in with Yuki. It took both me and Seiko off guard.

Cole shook his head. "Wish I was," he said, picking at the top of the packet without looking at us. "Rikku said something happened between Yuki and Zane in the past that was hard for him to deal with or something like that. Yuki wanted revenge on him for whatever it was."

"Man," I breathed, leaning against the doorframe. The room we stood in was narrow, like it was meant to be a closet or something, but only housed the white freezer-cooler and a stack of laundry baskets in the corner. It didn't fit all of us, only able to capacitate Zane and Cole, with Zane sitting on the roof of the cooler and Cole leaning against it. I meandered in the threshold, and Seiko stood outside. I could tell she was a little antsy around the guy who took away her personality by banning her from insultation. Speech, pretty much. "He seemed nice enough—I never would've guessed he'd go psycho."

Zane's face was sad. I didn't see why. Maybe he was just scared? "He was angry with me for something I did to someone he loved," said my strange friend. Cole and I snapped our heads towards him.

"Wait, you remember?" Cole gasped, but Zane shook his head at our growing excitement.

"No. I could sense his thoughts. His emotions. Much like I do with Miss Seiko." Zane picked at a piece of cracked skin on his thumbnail. "I sensed it all when he touched my skin. In a way, I know everything that I did to him, and I feel disgusting for it."

"But you don't remember doing it." It wasn't a question. Zane turned his head to smile sadly at Cole.

"No," he said, "but I saw my actions through his eyes." His voice cracked. His eyes squeezed shut. _Wow, _I thought. _So Yuki can not only feel emotion, but project his thoughts, too? _ Whatever had happened was terrifying Zane. I could see it on his face. He was scared, and he was also in shock. "It was awful. I—I killed the woman he loved out of my own need for revenge on—someone. I don't know who. But I _killed_ her, right in front of him, and I _made _him watch. I-I forced him to watch me _murder_…" Zane's shoulders started to shake. Suddenly, without warning, Zane burst into tears. I'd never seen Zane cry, not ever, but watching it made me feel like I was violating something, whether it's a law or a rule or… I don't know. Zane buried his face in his two hands, torn sobs coming from his throat. "I was a _monster," _he choked. Cole pulled himself onto the cooler and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

"You're not a monster," Cole whispered. I detected a hint of self-pointedness in that one.

Zane submerged his face in Cole's shoulder, wrapping his arms around his earthly brother. I knew it was awkward for Cole to be hugging him, but like he always was, the leader was there for his brothers, through anything. I wished there was a way I could make him feel better—I'm actually not really that great with helping people out of sobby situations. I felt awful for him. I just couldn't believe that Zane would do something that ugly to someone. Yuki had to have it wrong; it wasn't possible for someone like Zane to be a murderer. I'd sooner believe that the rabbit killed the hunter over accepting that Zane had killed a woman and made her lover watch. It just didn't happen.

Zane cried, letting Cole pat his back. I felt a little like the third wheel. "You're okay," he whispered comfortingly. "Zane, that wasn't you. It couldn't have been."

"But it was. I saw myself. So much _blood…"_

"Shhhhhh. I'm here. I'm here for you, Zane. Always. Shhhhh."

From my side, I felt a pulse. Not one from within my skin, but from an outer force shoving against the balance, slamming into my shoulder and practically knocking me off my feet. My head banged against the frame of the door. It was a Power stronger than anything I'd ever been hit with before; for a moment, I felt like all my power was being drained from my body, sucked out of my being by this Greater Power that stole it from me. I wasn't the only one feeling it; Cole and Zane reacted, too, by gasps and their own almost-falling travesties. Zane, through red, tear blurred eyes, looked to me, as did Cole. "What was that?" Cole asked.

"I-I don't know—" I turned my head to Seiko, but stopped.

She was gone.

"Seriously?" I growled. She had to have left when I wasn't looking. What was her deal now? Was _she _the Power I felt hit me? I straightened my posture from the doorframe. Upon leaving I heard Cole and Zane jog to my side. The hallway was empty of anyone, normally, but seven of the lights down the ceiling had blown out. "Seiko?" I called, jogging down the hall. "Where are you?" I looked into a couple of rooms with emptiness enough to make me growl. Cole and Zane stood by the doorway.

"Is that why we're out here?" Cole's voice carried towards me, indifferent and bored. I looked to him. "Because if it is, I'm leaving."

"Why?" I asked, frowning. I peeked into a half-bath off the bedroom. No one.

Cole looked tired, but he burned holes into my face while I jogged back towards them. _She couldn't have gone far.._. "I don't want to deal with her right now. She's being dramatic, like always. Annoying the hell out of me with her stupid games. She expects me to come running after her every time she runs away, to come pull her head out of her ass for her." He scrubbed his eyes. "Trust me, Lloyd, when I say this: just stay out of her head."

"What?" I asked. I couldn't believe I was hearing this from her _brother. _ I mean yeah, brothers always had something interesting to say about their sisters, but there was a bitterness underlying his.

Cole looked sincerely brutal. Even though Zane was bleary eyed beside him, he stared straight at me, never taking his eyes off mine. My cheeks heated under the heavy scrutiny—that, and the fact that I had a feeling I was going to have a heart-to-heart with the brother of the girl I just kissed. "Lloyd, if you become…involved… with her, you're stepping into a live trap. She's a spider. She's going to wrap you in her web until she strangles you, and when you want out, she won't _want _you to get out. She'll want you to stay. She's obsessive, Lloyd. I lived with it for long enough to know that. Seiko…" He paused, looking for words. "She hands her heart to the first boy who calls her pretty. It doesn't matter who it is. She falls in love with people who even show her a _sliver _of respect, and that can be one or many people at once. She loves blindly, and recklessly, and when that someone—or someones—end up getting her heart, she feels like she belongs to them. And if she doesn't hear something good about her come from their mouth, she gets desperate. She overworks her heart, and her thoughts, and suddenly everything goes _spiraling _down. She would always ask me to tell her what I thought of her, then she'd ask me to tell her I loved her _constantly. _It just wouldn't stop. Every fifteen minutes. And I'd tell her what she wanted to hear just so she'd leave me be, but I was only making it worse—I was making her want to be around me all the time. She would become clingy. She'd beg for me to hold her hand, or hug her. She acted like a nut. I can only imagine that…if you get involved with her… it'll be worse than it was with me." Cole blinked slowly at the floor before meeting my eyes again. "I'm just looking out for you, Lloyd. I don't want you to get hurt or get caught in an endless web because of her. And believe me when I tell you that you don't know my sister like I do. She might seem 'normal' to you, but she's insane. Even the Department of Public Safety knew it, and that's why they agreed to let her in the nuthouse. She's got this game going. Pretending to be normal for _you, _because since you've been nice to her, she's given you her everything. She's pretending to be normal because that's what _you _want. Seiko is _insane, _Lloyd, and she's acting right now. She's doing this as part of her _game._ Now that you have her heart, she'd do anything for you. And that's the worst part of it. She expects some of that in return. She'll expect you to always be there for her, always love her, and when you realize you don't, you'll make it worse by trying to tell her that you don't want to be with her. She'll become obsessed with you, if she hasn't already."

I couldn't believe the words I was hearing. A brother, normally s devoted to the people he cared about—shown enough with Kai, Jay, Zane, and me—and always there for them, always having their back, was saying something like this about his own blood-related _sister. _I mean, yeah, maybe Cole had seen a side of her that I hadn't, because she was young when he last saw her. He hasn't seen her bloom. He hasn't seen her like I have. He's so stuck on the past that he isn't seeing that she isn't like that anymore. I was prepared to tell him exactly that, but I found my mouth speaking words I didn't say. "And how, exactly, do you know that she'll become obsessed with me? How do you know all of that stuff will happen?"

A moment later, I stared in surprise at him. I hadn't said those words. I mean, they came out of my mouth in my voice, but I wasn't even thinking them. I was scared for a second—until I heard the voice in my head.

_You need to know the truth, _said the Eye. So the _Eye_ had made me say those words. But…

_The truth? _

Cole reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, his eyes taking on pity. "I know this is a lot to hear, Lloyd. I feel bad that you're already this deep inside of the web."

"What are you _talking_ about?"

Cole sighed, retracting his hand. I held my breath. "Lloyd, how the hell do you think she ended up in the asylum in the first place?"

"Your father put her there when he didn't want to deal with her anymore," I told him flatly.

Cole chuckled without humor. "Is that what she told you?" He shook his head. "No, Lloyd. I know all that's going to happen because that's _exactly _what she did to get put in there in the first place."

I made a face. "Huh?"

Cole ran a hand through his hair. Instead of standing completely now, he leaned back against the wall, tilting his head to the plaster for a breather. His eyes closed. My heart thundered in my chest for the unknown. I had a sinking feeling that everything that was about to happen was going to make that kiss I shared be a little bit of a regret. _No, _I thought, clenching my fists. _I don't regret it. I-I care about her. Like her, I mean. Liking someone shouldn't be limited to the opinions of overrated brothers. _

Cole took a deep breath, but never once opened his eyes. Zane and I centered our attention to him. "I had a friend, once, named Toby. We hung out a lot, after school. He was a regular at home. Dad knew him, Mom knew him before she…was gone. He was a good kid. When he'd come over, he and Dad would always start talking about something, and it would be this three-way conversation we'd have. Dad was starting to heal from my mom's passing. One day, Seiko had a program at school at the end of the day. Some kind of musical or something. I had brought Toby over to my house to hang out before she left with Dad to go. Dad was so proud of her."

I cut him off. "Your father despised her," I said.

Cole opened his eyes, tiredly, and shook his head. "No. He never despised her. It was only until she did…_this…_that he started to not-enjoy her." Cole swept his hair from his eyes. "Seiko wore this dress with red flowers on it in celebration of the program. Toby saw it, and he said she looked beautiful. Just out of courtesy. But that was a mistake. She became _infatuated _with him. Wouldn't leave him alone when he came over. Would ask him for hugs, to carry her around, to tell her she looked pretty out of the blue. It freaked Toby out so much, so I stopped bringing him over. Then she'd find us at school and do it in _public. _So much so that whenever Toby refused to do what she wanted, she got depressed, and started cutting herself." Cole squeezed shut his eyes as if to rid the memory from his brain. "Toby felt horrible when he found out, so he stopped telling her no. In _public, _Toby would carry her in his arms like a bride, and tell her she was cute, and all this stuff. When she found out he liked cheerleaders, she stole a suit from a friend of hers and wore it for him when we were at the _skate park _one day, 'cheering him on.' When she found out he liked pineapples, she stole seventy bucks from my dad and bought a crapload of pineapples for him, then left them all on his front porch for him with a note saying she was perfect for him. She was _infatuated _with him. Always talked about him, drew pictures of him. Finally, one day, we told her to stop." I watched the earth ninja bury his face in the heels of his hands. "She went _berserk. _Insane for real. She destroyed his bike by throwing it out in traffic and letting a semi run over it. She got in trouble at school for posting a bulletin on the school board about him seeking men with huge…you know. _Things. _The whole school saw it. She told his girlfriend nasty things about him. The cutting didn't stop. I found her doing it one day in our bedroom with a box sitting in front of her. She told me she wouldn't stop hurting herself until 'Toby loved her again.' She couldn't live without it. Then, I saw the box." Cole's voice suddenly went quiet, a bare din in the empty hall. "They were all _photographs _of him that she had taken with her polaroid camera. Pictures of him when he didn't know he was being photographed. Pictures of him doing _everything: _Buying stuff from the store, paying for it, hanging in the park, skateboarding, playing baseball, even pictures from outside his house looking in his _window." _Cole's voice streaked upwards. "There were papers in there with all these notes about him, what he was doing, where he was on what day at what time. She'd been _stalking _him. My dad…got mad at her for doing it, but he didn't want to ruin his reputation, so he didn't tell anyone at first. But he started not being very gentle to her. One day, he hit her and knocked her head into the wall, and after that she started becoming enamored by my other friend, Jamie, and started doing the _same thing. _That's when my dad finally told the police and we went through this whole trial-process, and she got formally diagnosed with a form of insanity, after which they put her in the asylum. Lloyd, she is _dangerously crazy, _and you need to get out of whatever you two are doing _now _before it gets bad. And if you don't believe me, you can Google her. You could probably even watch her trial on YouTube if you wanted to. I'm not lying to you. She's becoming this person that she thinks _you _want. If you don't get out now, I can't save you from the trauma."

I stared at the floor. _No. _This couldn't be true. It couldn't be.

_It is, _the Eye said. With it surged a knowing that Cole wasn't lying. _Seiko is insane. Everything he says is true. _

No. it couldn't. Seiko wasn't insane.

_The more you adore her, the more you feed her obsession. _

No. She's not obsessed, and she isn't crazy. All of you are just so against her that she's all alone in the world.

_That's what she _wants _you to believe._

"You're lying," I said to it out loud, but Cole didn't know I was talking to my hand.

"I will _show _you the newspaper articles, the news broadcasts. That stuff doesn't lie, Lloyd," Cole said pointblank.

"You're wrong!" I yelled, backing up. _No. _It wasn't true. "She _isn't _insane. I'm going to prove it to you! She isn't!" I whirled, running down the hallway.

"_Lloyd! Come back!"_

Seiko wasn't insane. I knew her like nobody else did; I knew her inside out. She wasn't insane. Especially not _that _insane. Her father could've fabricated the evidence—it was fake. This was fake. A lie. Seiko _wasn't _insane! A pulse of light in the hallway made my head hurt. I ran with my eyes closed, running to nowhere—somewhere. I held up my hands in front of my face as a blinding light appeared, slamming me hard into the wall and causing me to fall on my face—

* * *

**!***EDIT: Some of you may have noticed the ending changed. that's on purpose. I updated it!**

**Please review. Go have an awesome day/night!**

**Love, Kairi**


	57. REWRITE! Chap 57

**!IMPORTANT!**

So hiya guys. *(* Emi here! Kairi's been busy lately writing the birthing chappie of Rie and also takin' care of Ru, so she asked me to rewrite chapter 57 for her because…well, it was a really crappy chapter. **SO FORGET EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED IN THE LAST CHAPTER 57 IF YOU READ IT! IT NEVER EXISTED! NONE OF THAT HAPPENED!**

I'm sorry if it sucks, I'm not as good as my sister…and I am feeling like a dumpster just got stuck on my face because I ran into a pole today. Don't. Ask. ;.;  
so like I wrote something about Seiko, bear with me here it's important. I didn't like writing her POV, but the Lloyd POV at the end was my fave to write.

Sawee if it bad. Prepare for randomness! :* Have a nice day! ~~EMIIIIII

* * *

**CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN:  
**Intimacy

Suddenly, everything was sucked out of itself.

That's just what it looked like. Like the image swallowed itself whole, slurping into this little tornado that slowly drank in Seiko's vision, turning everything into a vortex of black. She was not sucked inside, but rather left in this empty hover in between two worlds, one of darkness and the other of reality, although the latter she couldn't seem to locate, outstretching her hands in the former but finding no feeling. She was not within the hallway, staring into the eyes of a seriously gorgeous man, watching him glare at her for running into his chest. She was Nowhere. She called for Lloyd, but his voice was gone.

"Such a foolish child," laughed a male's voice with an accent, and Seiko reeled.

Abruptly, someone turned on the lights, and the world was spread before her again. Her heart she could feel was thundering inside of her chest, ready to burst. Everything was a little bright for her eyeballs, but Seiko could see just fine; she was not in anything but a hallway, yet not the hallway she'd come from. It was long, painted tan, with dark wood underneath her feet. Periodic doors skirted the walls with paintings and abstract pictures stuck in the gaps. At the very end of the dimly lit tunnel, there was a large window overlooking the darkened sky outside, the lights of Ninjago City blaring faithfully off into the distance. Seiko watched the skylights for a minute in dazed, sleepy confusion. _Have I blacked out? _She wondered curiously, looking down at her own two, if not cracked by her lifelines stretching across her palms, hands. She looked for some sign of a fall, or something that may have given away that she'd lost consciousness, but her dive into the darkness had not been for more than a few mere seconds.

How did she get in a hallway that she hadn't been in before? Seiko acutely remembered there being a Laundromat stuck inside of the monastery, and at that, a gorgeous male man curling his lip at her from the center of the narrow passage. His eyes were the last thing that she remembered seeing before it was as though someone switched off all the lights, sending her into a spiral of gloom, only to arise in some foreign place such as this one. She knew it was part of the monastery for the way it was designed, but what of her means of getting there? Did that man do something to her?

Seiko found her legs imitating Jell-O. She managed to pull herself into a standing position with the help of the wall for support. Twinkies was mysteriously nowhere in sight. Or, for that matter, _anyone. _It was more deserted than a badly-graded donut shop, its pricy bakeries leaving it out-businessed and falling off its feet.

Seiko looked at her feet. "What the hell was that?" she muttered aloud.

"Your mind is _just _so easy to get into."

Seiko whirled at the sound of the voice, the hairs on the back of her neck erecting. It was that accented voice, the one that she could feel prickling her mind with its probes earlier, the one that paused her mid-hall and made her look like a total idiot. But instead of finding the owner of the lisp standing behind her, the hallway was empty, leaving her clueless as to what really _was _going on. Her senses, they were jumping off the walls. What was happening, here?

Seiko ground her teeth. "Who's there?" she called.

"I've gone by many names, but _Who's _is definitely a first."

This time, instead of the voice being before her, it was at her back again. Seiko whirled only to find the same conclusion: an empty hallway. She did another complete turn and still saw nothing. "I hate the game _Hide and Seek,"_ she called. "Just show yourself!" To make sure she wasn't destabilized again, Seiko pushed her back against the wall, her eyes darting from either end of the blurry channel to catch anyone that could be playing games with her. This man, whoever he was, wouldn't get away with this.

"As you wish," said the voice, and suddenly she saw him.

He appeared in front of her, like a bad cut scene appearing in the middle of a movie. Seiko jumped about a foot. There was nothing about him that said "your average, everyday dude who randomly appears in the middle of a hallway to save the crazy girl who thinks she's in the middle of a serious breakdown." Everything about him was menacing—and she couldn't even see his _face. _Hidden beneath a metallic forgery with multiple plates just stitched together by screws and nuts, the rough details completely threw her off. What she was looking at was not a Halloween mask, but a mask made entirely out of spare parts, a hinged jaw that was as long as half the throat, with rust drizzling from the bolts holding it to the upper lip like drool pouring down the face of a discarded dog. At where the ears of the mask would be, there were two large button-like hinges, but the jaw didn't seem to have the capacity to move when spoken through. The face of the mask held no resembelance to a human face. It was just this long, wide shape, almost Indian-mask-ish, but not quite so bizarre. Two almond-shaped eyeholes aligning the sharp bridge of the metal nose allowed whoever hid behind it to stare out at her with intense, bright, neon green eyes, the irises glowing so much that shadows were cast along the ridges of the quickly-put-together mask. So the top of the wearer's head couldn't be seen, a long, stark black cloak covered him with the ebonic shade of its hood. It pooled in darkness less concentrated than the shadow of the Void around the ankles, in fact the whole body was hidden from Seiko so all she could see was this rusted, silvery mask staring out at her. Her body screamed _run, _but she was glued to the spot. She was spelled in place.

"Who the hell are you?" she snapped. Her voice shook a little. "The Masked Bandit?"

No expression came from the metal mask, but the eyes blinked from beneath it, for one second blocking out the light that was streaming brilliantly out the holes. "I go by many titles," repeated the man's voice. "The Dark One, the Harbringer of Death, Evil I. But I am sure you know me well as Kaos the Deadly."

_Kaos. _Wasn't that the evil guy that made Twinkies crap his pants? Seiko couldn't make herself stop shivering. It wasn't cause she was _scared, _but 'cause of the chill that rolled off the body of this creature. It smelled of death, of decayed bodies running behind him, a mere flap of his tailcoat dismissing them the minute he continued to walk on, never looking back once. He left a trail of destruction, of ruin in his wake, and it showed clearly by the burning in her nostrils and lungs. Somewhat similar to smoke, the scent made her begin to cough, chucking out the taste of metal—of _blood—_from her mouth. She clung to the wall for support, but hoping was useless. "You can't be here," she snapped. "You—you're supposed to be spelled out by the wards on this cruddy hellhole. The witch said she protected it with a"—_cough cough cough—"_buncha spells that'll keep you out."

"Did she?" The voice was not muffled from after the mask. He sounded like he was smirking. "The attempt must've been so weak, I didn't feel them as I forced my way in here. Not difficult to do, mind you. All I have to do is slay a few robots who decided to roam off the premises, and here I am, standing before you." There was movement underneath the black cloak. Seiko tensed. "I much rather find this place cozy. Not as cozy as my place of staying, but just fine for a couple of mislead Ninja and an insane little Doppelganger. Don't you think?"

Seiko noticed he talked a little fast. The words rolled pacedly off his tongue so there was barely a little pause between his accent, but just enough of one so that you knew what he was saying. Without giving her a turn, Kaos continued his rant, peculiarly unmoving for someone who seemed to have a lot to say. "Getting back to my point: It's so easy to get inside your head. I find it amusing that someone so small with such a great power is so _weak, _so easily succumbing to disaster. Do you not feel it? I know you could sense me there with you in the hallway."

"That was you" was all Seiko could say. For some reason, all the words she wanted to say were being crammed right back down her throat. Something…some _Power…_was shoving them back down.

"Aye, milady, it was." Kaos sighed, his breath audibly hitting the mask. "I was able to completely rule your mind with barely even a _sliver _of my own Power. You are so gullible when it comes to men, you know. So easily defeated by their true nature. Especially when it comes to that prowling Garmadon boy. I _do _see, every time I have observed the two of you, the way that you are easily sired to him. You so easily find yourself under him. So, with that wonderful observation, I did take it upon myself to improvise the situation a little bit in the hallway…"

Dread suddenly struck Seiko's heart. _Improvise the situation. _That could mean a number of things, but Seiko had this awful feeling that she already knew what it meant. With the mega amounts of mind control this guy could willingly dish out—did that mean that Kaos had conquered the situation in Seiko's mind and changed what she saw? Observing, watching, whatever he was doing, he knew something about the complicated relationship the Yin shared with the Yang. He had to have seen how Seiko melted and hardened just by Twinkies's attention, much to her teeth-grinding anger. Did that mean… _"__**WHAT DID YOU DO**__?!" _Spit bubbled at her lips. Seiko's struggle to move was becoming muscle-pounding. She couldn't even move an _inch. _It had to be Kaos holding her back, a fly under a swatter, a mouse under a cat's paw.

Nothing. No flicker of anything but another blink from the neon eyes. "Well, I'm sure you're smart enough to figure it out, but I love gloating. I did happen to take upon myself the ability of rewiring the situation, if you want to call it so." Before Seiko could ask again, his words drowned in malice: "I made you believe that you were swept into the arms of that annoying little Green Ninja, falling lover to lover in his kiss. I made you become captured by love and letting yourself think that for one second someone on this earth was able to love you better than your own mind could. I made you think that you were _safe. _When, in fact, you are far from it. The real situation is that you stopped in the hallway but ran before _Lloyd_ could understand what was happening. Then you ran into here, where you collapsed in unconsciousness until I was done controlling your mind." Kaos chuckled, menacing and dark. "You are just too easy to handle, dear. But now, you must know that all you are is alone. He was never _there _for you." He spat the word at me. The mask never moved. "He was never in _love _with you. He's a child, for god's sake; he would never love _you. _You're just an insane girl in his path that he has an obligation to protect. One of the millions he has duty to protect anyway. A _nobody."_

She knew his words were meant to cut her. He knew that was his _attempt. _But she still couldn't handle criticism any better than she could when Maya dropped the word "whore" on her shoulders. Every word struck a silver cord in her stomach, in her heart, and made tears begin to prickle at her eyes. _Lloyd…never loved…me? _She thought, watching herself relive her past time and time again, the jarring memories of Cole washing backwards over her body in waves that drug her back underneath the surface. How many more times was she going to let people step all over her heart, crush her soul and dreams like this? Flashbacks of being torn down by Lou and facing Cole as he watched her slowly die inside started to eat at her. She'd become victim to Power but she wouldn't ever let herself do that again. Seiko clenched her fists.

Kaos had to be lying. This had to be a mirage itself. It had to be something he was making up right now, for her sake of confusing her, of making her squirm—

"No, love, this is reality. You'll soon find that this can become far worse." Kaos read her thoughts like a book. Seiko jumped. He could do that too?! "If I can easily control your mind, hearing your thoughts is nothing." Kaos's mask bobbed. "More power to you, my dear…But really, I must run. I _do _have a schedule. Ta-ta—and I'll see you next vision." That last note rung in her ears. With a loud flash of bright colors, Seiko found herself collapsing on the floor in unconsciousness…and sobriety into darkness once more.

**~The ****_Real _****Yang~**

When my eyes finally edged open, I immediately sensed I was not alone. I bolted up from the comfortable cushions of the designer couch that I'd fallen onto in a moment of tiredness sometime around an hour ago. The nightmare I'd had came flooding back at me, pouring over me and invading my lungs, filling me completely with confusing words and images that I just still didn't understand. Jeez…what a really freaky, weird dream. I rubbed my eyes.

I'd had this dream that Cole, Zane, and I were in this weird room off of a laundry room, where Cole sipped at a blood bag and Zane brooded guiltily over something…I couldn't exactly remember what. It was one of those dreams that quickly faded as you woke. Anyway, there was some kind of problem…and Zane, Cole, and I had run out into the hallway in search of something. Then, out of the blue, Cole started giving me a lecture about Seiko Mitsuhide's _past, _something I by certain didn't bargain for or try to weasel him into explaining to me. What he told me chilled me to the bone with words of true insanity, darkness, craze, and, jeez, _freakishness _that I immediately wanted to avoid correlating with. It was just _creepy. _The dream had felt real, even the part where I slammed into a wall, so I couldn't help but get a little queased when it started to just ebb away like every other dream did.

I rubbed my hand over my eyes. I hadn't seen Seiko since the hallway coming from the dining room however-many-hours-ago it was, where she'd stopped in the middle and stared into space for a few minutes. When we'd finally gotten her attention, Seiko had told me and Zane, with empty eyes, that she needed to go somewhere, and before I could stop her, she'd taken off down a different hallway. I had a feeling that it had something to do with her inability to insult people, so I had just brushed it off, letting her disappear into the maze of the house, knowing she was safe in the protection of the monastery's wards. Zane had been a little more reluctant to let her go, but after a little convincing, we had continued into our grand tour of the house until Koemi told us that she needed to train Bokuyo a little before he went to bed. Zane and I had then walked around until we found a sweet living room, where Ming and the familiar Ripsaw were busy playing checkers on the coffee table surrounded by six different couches and chairs. It looks like the Clockwork Army went overboard in storming the _Ashley _home furniture store with the bounteous amounts of things they bought. We'd passed a laundry room that was _full _of washers and dryers, like some kind of home Laundromat or _something, _but it was just dang freaky. Anyway, with nothing better to do, Zane and I had hunkered down for rounds of checkers with Ming and Ripsaw, both of whom I found pretty entertaining to be around when Zane was in the room. I guess I'd fallen asleep on the couch while waiting for my turn.

Upon looking, I found Zane intensely staring at his black checker pieces, contemplating his next move. He faced Ming, who stayed towards the other side with her own face empty, champion at not giving away her next attack by the look on her face. Ripsaw was absent from the match. I stretched nap out of my muscles as Zane lifted his chip, wary, to have Ming turn to me. "Hello!" she said, giving me a smile. "Wakey-wakey."

"_Pssshh _-ya." I nodded. Man. I shouldn't have fallen asleep. Now I was even _more _tired. "What time is it?"

"Eight-fifty-five."

"Oy. That wasn't a very long nap." I cracked my knuckles. _Man, that dream…_ "Has anyone seen Seiko?" I asked, locking my hands behind my head. Had she recovered from shock yet, or was she still ruminating over it privately?

Zane made his move, so Ming lifted her fingers, hovering them over her pieces and waving them, preparing the magic to get herself kinged. Neither of them looked at me. "Ripsaw told me Shane Quesmeyer told him that Sylver saw a girl in the middle of the hallway, presumably Seiko, and escorted her to a bedroom. He said she was sitting in the middle of the hall silently. No speaking, just silence. When Zane tried to go talk to her, she denied him access to her room and sent him back."

I rubbed my eyes. Apparently, the Compulsion cut pretty deep. I threw my legs over the side of the brown leather couch, looking down on Zane, who innocently kinged Ming's checker piece. He looked at her and smiled, pleading, "Congratulations!" in an actual proud voice. I rolled my eyes.

"Zane, the point is _not _to let her get kinged," I told him, running my hands through my hair. That dream stuck with me.

Zane's eyes widened at me, his mouth sucking into a tiny point. "But then I would feel bad because she didn't accomplish her goal," he said dumbly. "I believe everyone should have what they want, if it is something so small and simple as having her checker piece flipped to the other side."

I laughed while Ming rolled her eyes. "If you are so easily dominated by a woman in a game of _checkers," _she said, moving a red piece diagonally, "then I fear what your first girlfriend will be like."

I was going to make a point that he'd already had one: Carolyne. But either Ming wasn't up for remembering friendships-gone-wrong, or she just didn't know that. No matter if I would've tried or not, though, Zane beat me to answering. "But I already have," he insisted, wiping his hands on his knees. "I am deeply in love with Danielle."

I froze. Danielle? As in, my _mother _Danielle?

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, _WAIT _a second." I stuck out my hands, catching four eyes looking at me. "Did you just say DANIELLE? Like, my mom?"

"Yesh." Zane's face could only be described as a cushy-little _fuuuu. _I wanted to die. Zane thought he was in love with my MOM? Was this the aftermath of Eloquim's power? Oh, god. Zane. Plus my mom. I think I'm going to be sick.

_EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWW!_

"Nuuuuuuuuu." I jumped to my feet, covering my ears and pointing at him a moment later. "Nuuu. She's my _mom. _You can't, you know, like, _be with my mom. _That's _NASTY."_

Zane closed his eyes and nervously rubbed the back of his head, giving a worried chuckle. "Still thinking like a child, I see," he said.

"NO, I'm thinking like a concerned son who doesn't want my other friend who acts like a creepy toddler thinking it's _okay _to mess with my _mom. _That's so GRODY!" I jumped on my feet, brandishing a sword in my mind to cut off all those disgusting images that seemed to just come back and take away my sterility. Oh, god, not my _mom, _and ZAANNE! "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! YOU'RE DISGUSTING! GROSS! NOOOOOOOO! NO-HOOOO-HOOOOOOO!" I almost started crying. This was the worst thing that had ever happened to me.

EVAR.

"I FORBID YOU TO SEE MY MOTHER," I said, and pointed at his face. Zane raised an eyebrow tolerantly. "YOU CAN'T HANG WITH MY MOM."

Zane moved his piece like I wasn't pointing the Index Finger of Doom in his face. "I apologize that we are intimate. I will try not to be disturbing to you in my expression of love to your mother."

"OH MY GOD DON'T USE THE WORD INTIMATE _ZAAANNNNE _YOU JUST MADE MY BRAIN EXPLODE WITH DISGUSTINGNESS Zane NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Intimate. _Intimate. _With my _Mother. _My teammate…intimate with my mom. Oh, my frickin' cornballs. NO. And 'expression of love'? What are we, Will Shakespeare? "Zane, you're DISGUSTING! YOU CAN'T BE INTIMATE WITH MY MOM!"

Zane looked up at me, pursing his lips. "I do rather enjoy kissing. It would be a shame if—"

I couldn't take this anymore. I ran towards the door, screaming, "KAAAIIIIIII! ZANE IS BEING INAPPROPRIATE AND MAKING MY EYEBALLS ALL QUEASY AND I CAN'T FEEL MY FACE BECAUSE IT'S STUCK IN SHOCK! _KAAAAAIIIIIIIIIII!" _all the way out the door.


	58. Chapter 58

**DEAR READERS: IMPORTANT!**

**EMI AND I REWROTE THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER, CHAPTER 57!**** YOU MUST GO READ THAT ONE TO KINDA UNDERSTAND THIS ONE TOWARDS THE END! Well...not really, but YOU NEED TO READ IT FIRST! IT ISN'T LIKE IT USED TO BE, COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, SO PLEASE FORGET EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED IN THE LAST CHAPTER 57 **(NOT THE NEW ONE) **AND JUST READ THE NEW ONE! THANK YOU FOR BEING SO PATIENT WITH ME. I HATED THE OLD CHAPTER 57 SO I CHANGED IT. YAY. **

**WE GET TO MEET RIE TODAY. :HOOORAAAAAHH!:**

* * *

**CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT:  
**Welcome to the World, Rie Tanaka

Nya started screaming somewhere around nine o-clock, but before the awful cries left her lips, Kai already had a sense that it was coming. He could feel his heart start to rhyme into a slow, ticking _ka-thump, ka-thump, _when it came upon him that he was about to witness the birth of his niece.

Reality checked in when he thought about something like that, that Nya, his little sister, the determined achiever and mysterious Samurai X, was about to have a baby. The whole time she was pregnant, Kai never really gave two thoughts about it; in his mind, all he could picture was the little girl that used to beat him up and sit on top of him until he surrendered his bag of chewy gumdrops, not the fine, beautiful young woman she'd grown up to be. She'd proven him wrong, all this time, that she was capable of handling herself, keeping her own attitude in line, and above all, being the ideal sister that any other guy could want. Kai remembered that day she and Jay had finally scored their first date—at the not-so-romantic getaway of Mega Monster Amusement Park—she had finally told the other guys she was the Samurai X that was stealing their fame. Kai had already known about it, also deprived of his special title of the 'Green Ninja' when everyone _miraculously _forgot the deal that they'd TOTALLY made, those brotherly liars—but he'd been surprised that the only one shocked by it was Jay. He probably, if giving more thought to it, would've determined that it wouldn't have shaken Zane (_nothing _bothered Zane) and it did not. Cole just simply regarded the news with his bushy eyebrows up and his face unreadable, which Kai _did _find a little odd. Wouldn't you expect someone with that much dedication to his team to be floundered by the idea that their rival in reputation was actually a girl, hidden behind a mask and kicking butt better than them? At the same time, though, Cole had never been really _troubled _by the Samurai pickpocketing them of their thunder; he really only ever skirted around the conversations they had late into the night about the metal-man that took away their fangirls. It bothered Kai before he'd known it was his very own sister doing the evil work, and it peeved Jay more so to lose the minimal amount of followers on SurfaceManuscript he had to a giant man in a mask. (Until she revealed herself.) Cole and Zane, however, had brushed it off, though Zane had at least _tried _to act like it mattered to him. The two of those were both the only ones who seemed to have had their head screwed on straight when it was just the Ninja, Sensei, Nya, and the annoying kid Lloyd.

In short, Cole never cared about whom the Samurai was and who wasn't. He'd accepted the knowledge that the woman he would soon have an affair with was a genius quite carefully, but in a way expectantly. He'd told her that he "wished he had a sister like her." Kai figured that now, knowing he had a sister, Cole was saying it as some kind of actual document on his wish list, but he could've been wrong. Or maybe that was supposed to translate out of secret code into "I wish I had a _girlfriend _like you." He'd gotten what he wanted, in the end. To sleep with Kai's sister and fall deeper in love with her, perhaps even as deep as Jay had once fallen.

Did it irritate him that his sister had been sexually touched by two of his teammates? Yeah, it did, but if Kai had learned anything in the few years he'd had with Nya socializing around _men, _and _only men, _it was that she was proficient at making her own choices, not having Kai butt in and make them for her. He'd backed off of her and Jay only days before Sensei Wu died, and by that time, she'd already managed to jump into the pants of the one guy Kai knew would be hard to excite. (Zane really didn't count. Kai thought that if Nya had tried to mess with him, Zane would've just gone with it, because he was Zane and…there really was no other explanation.) Cole had his own way of handling himself. He was reserved, silent, quietly deadly, secretive, protective, loyal, dependable, reasonable, witty, standoffishly awkward, comforting to be around, a good listener, a planner, _someone who thought before they did, _and just this giant, scary dude with a really mushy heart. Kai could see him being a great father, but also someone who found it difficult to connect with their kid; in this case, a beautiful daughter who was soon to come. Was he the best choice for Nya? That was something Kai couldn't answer, because it was _her _choice. _She _got to choose. He was done taking away from her the things that she knew she could do on her own, according to the way that he had a feeling she'd call for him if she needed his assistance. Accepting that she was carrying around the child of someone other than Jay was also a blow to the unmentionables. Wasn't it only a couple of days ago that Kai was listening to the immature lightning ninja prattle on about hot girls and having to tell him to back off? Personally, Kai mutely rooted for his sister to pick Jay because Jay was her, as Zane once poetically put it, "epic love," and because he knew that Jay would keep her safe. Not that Cole wouldn't—there wasn't doubt that he would—but there was always that part of Jay that loved deeply, and recklessly, and would always have an eye for Nya no matter if she fell into Team Mitsuhide or Team Walker. If he lost her, it would take _years _to mend his broken heart, and by then, she would already have been four children deep into her vow to Cole. Kai had never known a man to fall so far for a woman, not even the blacksmith and Nya's mother, that he'd never be able to climb back out. Jay's everything was Nya, even if he couldn't remember it. It would hurt Kai to see Jay be left alone because she found a vampire sexier than just a regular guy. After the comforting and several tubs of mint-flavored ice cream, Kai would slowly pass off Jay into Mother Zane's arms, because Zane was better at that brotherly comforting thing. He'd done it before after Sensei died, trying to keep their band together, to keep them alive rather than watch them all crumble. Zane had been the glue that held them close. He had so many traits about him that were able to donate to the group healing—all Kai could offer to help Jay kill the pain inside was six-pack of beer and a couple hours to himself.

Nya had to hearts in her hands. All she had to do was give one back. But whose would she return?

While she wrestled with her hold on labor, Kai told Nya stories about her past-self, waving his hands in gestures that would never quite contain the true brilliant spirit of her magnificence. His stories ranged from the Samurai X to their days back in _Four Weapons, _but none of them disappearing under the water of memories past the day that Kai met Sensei Wu. She listened, her face covered in sweat and her hair knotted away from her face by a rubber band, through half lidded eyes and a cheek to the pillow, with that huge circle of a belly being the center of her hand's attention. She kneaded the blanket covering the bulge, twisted it so the designs she made with her strength left wrinkles in the cotton when it came undone. Her bosom darted between being aerial and compressed. The breaths she was taking were labored, but Kai was able to distract some of the pain with the things he was telling her. He stayed by her head, taking his hands and pushing her sticky bangs out of her face since they were too short to be contained by the rubber band, and for a moment, Kai felt like Nya was actually _there _with him. That might sound a little weird, because she _was _beside him, but he meant in a way that the _old _Nya, the one who knew her heritage, was sitting there looking at him, laughing with him at their old retentions of a time that was much simpler than this one. Without her memories, Nya was not deeply as coupled with Kai, but he felt like she was still in there somewhere, just waiting to have her truths unlocked so she could be here with him. He hated having to talk to her about something _she'd _done, just something she didn't _know _she did. Nya had an obligation to know of how awesome she was, but it saddened Kai to have to tell it to her and not _feel _her there. He reached out and held onto her hand, telling her about all the times she scared the Serpentine with her Samurai X, and the time close to when she'd first come to stay with the Ninja that she'd come barging into their room at five in the morning to wake them for training. Specifically, Nya had figured it was okay to make her brother suffer a little worse than the strangers lying in the other bunks, and had hit him with Cole's pillow until he'd agreed to get out of his bed. It had been hard to actually _do _so when she was smacking him silly with covered feathers and plucked down, but the guys had been laughing. It was Cole that, ruffling Kai's bed hair after coming back from brushing his teeth, had said around his own tongue, "I like her already."

_And that 'like' bloomed into love…_

Jay tried to keep up some conversations with Yuki, a robot awkwardly hovering in the corner—at least, he looked awkward in Kai's eyes, but he doubted Yuki felt awkward—and Rikku, but both of them were so practical and honest that Jay couldn't keep any jokes flying with them, so eventually he stopped. The white stick of his sucker hung out the corner of his mouth, his chair stolen from Cole's absent body faced backwards to Nya's hospital bed parallel to Kai, as did his position in the seat. He moved around the stick in his mouth with his tongue and stared at the doorway. Waiting for someone to walk in. Kai knew he was listening to the affectionate brother go at it with the sagas of Nya's awesomeness, but he never once made a comment—very un-Jay-like. After a while, when Nya started to seem disinterested in her past and Kai's feeling of her soul _being there _ebbed away, Cole came back in without the attendance of Zane to follow him. Kai found the vampire's eyes exhausted, but he looked healthier, the blood he'd sucked dry from those plastic blood-drive bags subsidizing his vigor. He'd regarded Jay's robbery of his chair through half-lidded eyes, but said nothing; instead, he moved around the end of the bed and sat on the side of Nya's mattress. Kai kept his chin knelt on his arms, folded over the back of his chair that _he'd _reversed, legs fitted around the armless green plastic piece of junk that didn't bother robots but irritated a human. His chest pressed against the backing that should've been supporting his spine.

Cole's eyes softened when they saw Nya. He gave her a tiny smile that said _I'm glad you're still alive_. "How you doing, sweetheart?" He murmured, reaching out a hand to gently rub her cheek. Nya could pant a bare reply:

"Dying of pain exploding in my stomach. It feels like a minefield in there."

Cole barely gave her the satisfaction of seeing him respond to the humor. He looked guiltier than Kai had seen his childhood friend's dog act when they caught him digging through the garbage can once. Dogs were pretty good at looking guilty and sorry, which could be laughed at, but there was nothing funny about Cole's remorse. He looked as though he hated the sound of his very name. What his face played stayed true with his next words. "I'm so sorry," he barely whispered.

Nya took the hand he had pressed to the mattress. Kai's words of past were gone, so she absorbed playing with Cole's long fingers in their place, curling and uncurling them to his palm. "Oh, don't be like that," she told him. "What's done is done. And, besides. It'll be fun having a little baby running around."

Jay, back still turned to them, pushed his hair out of his eyes and snorted. Kai looked over at the sound. _Are you bored? _He wondered of his best friend, raising his eyebrow that was carved twice by the thick red scar down his face, graciously given by Kaos. _Because I think you're bored. You're sitting in here, waiting for a baby to be born that you have no input into creating whatsoever…Do you love her, Jay? Is that why you stuck around? _Jay could've left whenever he wanted to, but for some reason, the blue boy stayed, even if he was more silent than the dead the whole time. "What's so funny?" the overprotective brother pried.

Jay shook his head, smiling around the white stick. He turned in his chair to look Nya in the eye rather than Kai. "She'll only be sayin' that until the kid wakes her up in the middle of the night with its banshee cries. Hey, maybe we can call her Bansh-Rie as a nickname! Here, Bansh-Rie, Bansh-Rie, Bansh-Rie!" He said like he was calling a dog.

Nya rolled her eyes at him. She untangled her foot from the massive web of white cotton covers, then pushed him gently on the shoulder with the pad of her pedicured foot. "Like heck you're nicknaming my daughter after a banshee," she said, but her lips were twisted into a smile. "If that's the case, we'll start calling _you _something highly offensive."

Cole twisted his shoulders to look at Jay, who was far positioned beyond his peripheral vision, so he turned his whole upper body (his back had been facing Kai) to be able to see the joker. He had a small smile on his lips, mischief dancing in his gray eyes. "We used to tease you and call you Gay Jay," he said.

Once upon a time, Kai had thought that the moniker was hilarious, especially when it made Jay get red in the face. But now to hear it recalled in vocal context, hearing the word _gay_ slip out of a brother's mouth, made the fire ninja's stomach roll and eat itself alive. He wanted to hide his face from the others. It had only been up until Kai started having feelings for Lloyd that he had hated that word, three letters that somehow made a world of a difference by putting you into a completely different social class than any other word ever created. You were considered "not normal" if you had those three letters tied together in anything about you. It was almost like racism, some segregation by the people you fell in love with rather than your skin. He wanted to vomit.

"THAT IS NOT NICE," Jay sternly said, pointing his finger in Cole's face. The vampire dodged the index phalange from poking him in the cheekbone by moving to the side. "TAKE IT BACK."

Cole chuckled. "Sure," he agreed, but the look he gave Jay out the corner of his eye said he didn't completely mean that.

"I AM GOING TO EAT YOU ALIVE IF YOU DON'T MEAN THAT PROMISE."

"Okay, problem _A _with that statement," Cole held up his finger on his left hand to tick off a reason. He swiveled his head to look down at Jay. "Out of the two of us, you would be the least likely to eat me before I ate you first. Problem _B"_—Cole pointed to his second finger—"is that I would be lying if I said I didn't mean it. And problem C"—his thumb came out of its curl inwards, bringing a tolerant smirk to Cole's pale lips—"we would have to start calling you Overweigh Jay, and _yes, _overweigh, not overweight, because it rhymes, for the reason that you would've consumed an entire person and that would no doubt do some damage to your beanpole-worthy mass now. I'd think _Overweigh _would be worse than _Gay, _don't you think?"

Jay's eyes narrowed, his lips pursed, and his torso, twisted at the hips to face Cole with his elbows on the covers and his arms draped over Nya's legs, flexed underneath his shirt. His body was somehow reacting to the idea of being overweight. Kai only noticed that Cole thought being overweight was worse than being a gay—think about it, one was life-threatening and the other wasn't—but that could've been from his weird body-builder nutrient thing he had going on. They sounded sort of like old times again, except there wasn't anything Kai could add in here that would make himself feel more comfortable over the awkwardness that had just begun.

And that's when his heart started to thunder. It wasn't because of the situation, but because he had a feeling that Nya was going to start having terrible contractions soon, and eventually that would lead to the one thing that he knew would freak him out the most at this moment: a _baby. _

…

Kai's premonitions served him right. The teasing banter had died away between Cole and Jay, but it didn't stop the heavy panting that Nya started to adopt, her breaths becoming arduous by each short-lived minute. Instead of her slumped locus of lying down, Nya sat ramrod straight against the pillows, opening her legs a little wider than they had been before. Kai noticed her near-constant fidgeting—and it appeared that Yuki did too.

He came to the foot of the bed. "It's almost time," he announced in a soft voice, returning to silence and staring immediately afterwards.

_Oh, great, _Kai thought, momentarily relieved, but inside there was a loud anxiety that overtook his heart. He seemed like the less-likely of the three ninja and a samurai to be afraid of the rising birthing, but he couldn't help but start to have those last-minute fearful situations-gone-wrong scenarios wrap around his mind. He pictured Nya dying halfway through the birth, her surprisingly strong body unable to withstand the awful abhorrence of giving a child the chance to breathe. He pictured her having to undergo a C-section because the baby could suffocate itself in her womb. The awful sight of Nya _bleeding _all over the place, screaming, trying to make it come out so she could just banish the awful pain, only to have the child and have to watch it die because of some weird vampire-human defect or something, was not filtered through his usually stagnant mind when it came to being able to force out things that Kai didn't want to see. He felt his stomach twist with grime and disgust.

He was going to panic.

But he wasn't going to. If he did, he'd freak Nya out, and with her growing groans, he knew that probably wouldn't be wise. As a first-time mother, she also had to be considering all of the disastrous ways this commencement situation into her days as a woman could go awry. Kai held fast to her hand, but it didn't comfort her into more than a weak smile that lasted half a second.

"God, it hurts," she whispered.

Cole held onto her other hand. His gaze was passionately engrossed on her face, and Kai couldn't see him blinking, if he even did at all. His lips fell to the back of her hand with his own, pulling it toward his face and giving it a soft brush. "Everything will be okay. It'll be okay."

Jay couldn't look at her. Kai knew it wasn't because he felt torn inside about the way that Cole was affectionately supporting her, but because he wasn't exactly comfortable in a room where a girl he knew was about to breathe childbirth. He kept his eyes trained on the door instead of Nya. (He was sitting properly in the backwards chair still.) Kai nudged the plastic, white leg with his foot, catching the attention of the distant man, who turned to him with his eyes slightly tired and his face diffidently unreadable, but Kai knew inside that Jay was thinking. The thoughts weren't _too _deep though; for that one, Jay had a whole 'nother face. One arm draped over the side of the bed, Jay looked for Kai, his eyes softly settling upon the nervous brother with barely even a change in dues. "You don't have to stay, you know," Kai told him quietly. "If you don't want to see this…"

"Of course I don't wanna _see _it," Jay interrupted, eyes taking on less of the empty and more of the animated man that Kai knew well. "That would be disgusting, and frankly, I think I'd have nightmares for the next two years. Can you imagine, being someone as queasy as me and seeing a baby be born? _Ewww. _But that doesn't mean I don't want to be here with her. I won't leave Nya. I will just remain by her head the whole time so I don't have to see the sprouting thing popping out." Jay shivered, like by his own words he'd grossed himself out. This time, he glanced over his shoulder at Nya and gave her arched leg a tiny squeeze. His smile was the same smile he'd been giving her ever since they had first met: that indulgent, temperate crooked lilt of his lips, a transformation in his eyes turning him from a joking laugher into a man head over heels. Kai couldn't turn his head fast enough before Nya then started to cry out in pain.

"Oh, _god, _oh, _god, _oh, _god!" _She quickly recited, her hand suddenly clawing deeply into Kai's palm, drawing blood by the cut of someone digging for the hell of it. "Oh, _god—" _Her prayer tilted with her head, face grimacing at the ceiling. Nya's neck arched into her tightly clamped-shut eyes, her exposed teeth as she made a noise through them, into the nostrils flaring with the next scream that bellowed out her throat. Kai winced at the pain in his hand and knew that it wasn't even _half _of what she was feeling. He looked to Yuki, as Cole and Jay already had done, with a bewildered, frightened eye. The white-haired healer remained composed as he gently lifted the blanket—Jay's head snapped the other direction—so he could watch what was happening, a spectacle that Kai couldn't measure watching at his age. Yuki's looks of youth deceived the others in the room, all but including Rikku, into a trickery that made them think that a teenager was doing the expression of midwife. He actually had to be _many _years old—according to the rivalry, Yuki was just as old as Zane's lives. Over the years, he had to have _some _birth experience, right?

Yuki met Kai's eyes levelly. "It's time," he said, holding out his hands underneath the covers. Kai didn't want to imagine what it was like under there…Jay stroked Nya's upper bent leg, his expression tattered but still supportive. Cole held her hand parallel to Kai's. The fire ninja _hoped _she was digging her nails into Cole's skin as deeply as she was to his own, or he'd seriously felt a little undermined. Yuki's work was invisible behind a white sheet. Nya started to cry out louder. Kai winced at the awful noise. "Alright, Nya, on the count of three, I'm going to ask you to push…"

…

"I think you should be in bed."

Bokuyo whirled at the sound of Maru's voice in his doorway. Boku had always been particularly close to Maru; she was like a second mother to him, her face clean and warm to him even though they had never met before a while ago. A mommy away from Mommy. She was tall, thin and fit, with long, dark brown hair and almond-shaped eyes. Boku thought, even though Maru's chocolatey eyes were very nice, that almonds were icky—he remembered his mommy trying to feed him one once, but it was just plain nasty. Tasteless, really. But Maru's eyes were very deep a color. Her skin was a sort of tan, kind of dark, but not really brown; a light brown. Like coffee. It was nothing like Boku's pale shade. Unlike Koemi's skin, it was never shiny, but had a dull sort of brightness to it. An' not _dull _like Koemi-boring-dull. Just not really overpowering. She was always nice to him, and she told him she loved him _all _the time, always picking him up and playing games with him when he was done training for the day. Maru would tuck him into bed every single night, kiss him on the forehead, and tell him a bedtime story. Normally, it was the one called the "Seven Samurai," 'cause that one was his favorite. He'd fall asleep against her chest and wake to the golden rays emanating off of Daijiro's body when he would wake the little boy up for breakfast in the morning. In a way, Dai and Maru were his parents, just not his parents. He loved them both more than any little kid could love someone.

And Koemi? Koemi was just kind of boring. She was young, so she understood fun sometimes, but she liked to sit and read out of magazines with pictures of shirtless guys and face cleansers instead of playing with Boku when Maru and Dai were on a mission. It was okay. Sometimes'es. But now, it wuz just gettin' _boring. _

Boku was in his bedroom sprawled across the floor on a rug, playing with a small, time-ragged blue bear in his hands. He'd gotten it from Mommy from the future. The patch stitched across his belly was smooth underneath Boku's scrawling thumb, tracing the ruffled feel of the bear in his hands. Mommy had given it to him before Sensei Wu had left with Boku, pulling it out of a special box in her closet. She'd knelt down before him and passed him the bear, old and worn, into his arms, her eyes full of tears at letting him go—if it was the bear or Bokuyo she was having trouble parting with, he'd never know. She'd straightened out the collar of his shirt and gave the blue bear an itch behind the ear. "_This is a special bear," _she'd told him, smiling gently. "_His name is Falafel. He's old, but he never fails to have a fun adventure. He'll always protect you, and stay by your side. He's there for you when you need him, always laughing and smiling and glowing this beautiful light that makes you all warm inside. He's a best friend. He was to me." _Her smile died, her gaze on the floor. Boku had then gotten the sense that Mommy was not referencing the bear anymore. _"Take care of him better than I ever did." _

Maru stood in Boku's doorway, watching him hold the bear tightly in his arms. The little boy smiled happily at the sight of her. "MARRUUUU!" He yelped, and with her return home the little boy was able to jump to his feet and find his way into the coffee-skinned girl. She bent at the knees to wrap her arms completely into their fold, laughing into his hair. Every time she came back from somewhere, this reunion took place. After all, Boku loved her.

_Maybe more than you love Mommy, _a voice in his head said, but he quickly shook it off. Of course he loved Mommy and Maru equal. He held Falafel tight in his hands, thrown around her neck with enthusiasm, and looked into the beady eyes of the stuffed bear's gaze. Raggedy, the bear stared back, letting Boku feel that protection Mommy described.

He swore the stitching on his mouth smiled at Bokuyo.

…

"Just _push_, Nya," Cole advised dumbly, feeling like an idiot for not being able to tell her the same things on repeat that made even his tongue feel swelled for overusing. As a leader, he should've been more supportive than just that, but he couldn't think of anything else to tell her other than _it's gonna be okay _and _you can do this _and _you just have to push. _Nya struggled to force the baby from her womb, leaning forward in a crunch position, her eyes welled shut by the epoxy resin of agony that she had to be feeling. Sweat trickled down her face, natural condensation clogging her pores. Cole came to wonder: Was giving birth worse than being stabbed by a makeshift stake out of a table leg? Being staked—no matter where, be it the leg, the arm, the wrist, the stomach, or god-forbid, the heart—hurt like nothing Cole had ever felt before. It was not as mild as being stabbed with a knife, nor tiny enough to be as excruciating as breaking a bone. It was the worst feeling in the world. He wasn't at challenge with her interval of pain, of course, just more of a thought than anything.

The screaming _had _to be the worst. Well, no, it wasn't exactly _screaming; _it was more of a gruntish wail than anything. Nya's manicured nails dug French-ly into his skin. Cole was just glad that he was a vampire, and by two minutes after the cutting the scar would no longer remain, no piece of his skin chunked off to remember this hour by. No, by the end of all this, he'd have a daughter to help him feel the pain. He ground his teeth. He wanted to tell her _it's okay, _but if he said that one more time, he'd cut out his own tongue. Nya gave a chirp again.

It's probably better to stay quiet, anyway. It's not like she could've _heard _him.

…

Jay thought everything was extremely nauseating, up until there was a loud _crack _of a door being kicked open by someone's enlarged foot. He whirled around, expecting some kind of trouble to come barreling in with heavy machine guns, or crossbows, or potato guns. No. It was just that kid, Lloyd Garmadon, who liked to chuck around vampires in his free time and destroy humble kitchens, taking down the batch of cookies that Jay makes with them. The kid's eyes were discs on his face, arms reaching out to catch something, but nothing was falling. He looked stupid.

Kai, too, looked over. His face pinched into the masculine grimace, lips half-curved down, in a disproving stare of _I will kill you _written all over his fine features. "Lloyd, get the hell out!" He said loudly over Nya's grunts of (Jay shivered) birth happening behind his back. A drizzle of sweat beaded at Kai's temple. It must've been from the dig of Nya's nails into his skin, leaving banana shaped dents in his flesh that were slowly bleeding over the white comforter. Lloyd shook his head.

"KAIIIII! MY MOM AND ZANE ARE TOGETHER! DID YOU KNOW THAT?" He yelled, putting his hands to his head. He ignored Nya completely, staring at Kai with everything his baby blue eyes had, including a pinch of dyingness that Jay could smell from all the way over here. It had a pungent odor.

Jay frowned. This was probably an awful time, but he could never turn down the opportunity to screw with someone. "Your _mom? _You mean the hot blonde he kissed for four minutes yesterday? You know, I swear I saw some tongue in here…He's a dirty kisser, if you ask me." No, none of that happened, but it made Lloyd shit his pants to hear.

Lloyd's eyes got bigger. Jay had to stop himself from cracking up them. With his hands yanking out his hair, Lloyd looked at him, higher than a kite. "_YOU_ TOO?! OH, _GOD_!" He whirled around, short of additional talk, taking his chance to be an endangered Lloyd rather than a present one, leaving the door fluctuating eclectically in a wide arc to bang against the wall. Jay gave a little laugh.

"_Sike," _he taunted.

Nya wailed. _Ow, my ears, _he thought, closing the eye neighboring the ear pebbledash to the famous Moaning Nya.

…

And then…it was over. Nya stopped screaming pretty quickly after the worst of the pain came. Instead of listening to her squeal and moan like the devil was after her virginity, there was a smaller, more teeny cry that took her place, satisfying Cole's ears with the sound of a baby's newborn whines. His face, hidden by the crook of his own arm to withstand the cuts her nails were making in his hand to deny the scent of Kai's and Nya's blood filling his nostrils, finally arose into the bright, bleached light of the hospital-relative room. He'd only ever heard a baby cry when he was in the patient room after Seiko was born, attending the show she made of her endless chattering, a demonstration of children's utter brainless head when they were born. Then, it had been annoying. But now, it was almost music to his ears.

His daughter was finally born.

Nya struggled to keep her breath quiet, but the panting was too much to soften. Cole wanted to look at her, tell her how great she did, how much he loved her and that she was _still _the most amazing girl he'd ever met. He wanted to push back her sweaty bangs and kiss her on the mouth, smile against her lips, and cry at how it felt now to hear that baby screaming with life rather than the feared silence of a dead one. There wasn't anything he could do, though, to daunt himself from where he looked now. Cole's eyes were glued to the bloody, wriggling thing in Yuki's arms. All white skin underneath that cover of red. The pale skin that came from neither of her parents, but the vampiric gene inside of her. With his daughter's head being supported by Yuki, he held the look of her face away from Cole, her little back to him against his forearm. Yuki was smiling down at her. His hands were smeared in Nya's sweet inner fluid that came from her beating crux, but Cole wasn't drawn to the scent of blood that wouldn't leave him alone. The robot wiped the baby down with a towel to rid away some of the painful reminders.

Kai and Jay whispered to her. "Good job, sis," Kai said, followed by the familiar sound of lips kissing a cheek. "I'm so proud of you."

"You did great," Jay agreed.

Yuki turned to Jay, nodding towards the gray cabinet behind him. "Grab me the extra blanket from there," he told the ninja. Jay jumped to his feet, eager to please, and retrieved a small green blanket from the fold on the shelf, unraveling it and helping Yuki swaddle the baby in it. Cole was anxious to get a first look at his daughter. Did she look like Nya? Did she look like him? Did she look like her mother's father? The look on Jay's face said that he approved, giving his goofy smile up to the new parents.

"Aw," he said, looking down at the new crying bundle in Yuki's arms, "she's so cute."

Yuki raised his head to the panting Nya, bobbing the baby in his arms. "Congratulations," he said, and walked around to the side where Kai sat, gently using his arms to deposit the baby into Nya's willing arms. Though she still suffered with great panting, she was eager to hold her baby. The green parcel of a child went gently between persons, both human and robot alike, but never once left the warmth and contact of touching a person. "It's a girl." Yuki probably said that out of his own eagerness to be like a real healer. Everyone had already known that.

The baby still cried, but when she came into her mother's arms, the crying started to fade into soft little breaths that Cole could individually hear. His whole body stung with the sight of the baby that Nya now held properly in the crook of her arms. The new mother looked down on the child with a gentle smile. "Hi, baby," she cooed softly, on tenterhooks but delighted. She spoke like anyone did to a child. "Hello, Rie. Oh, my goodness, you're so pretty. Oh, my baby girl. Mommy loves you already. Oh, my goodness…Hi, baby girl, hell_o_…Oh, Cole, _look _at her!"

Nya repositioned Rie in her arms so the cagey father could finally come face to face with the child he'd created. And that was when Cole finally saw the face of his amazing little daughter, and just the very first sight of her took his breath away.

Human babies came with all these side-effects of birth. Red, puckered skin; closed eyes, kicking feet; constant crying. But for the first time ever in the history of Ninjago and maybe even the whole world, the very first heir to Cole's vampire bloodline was born with a couple of kickstarters that changed her from the rest of the human babies in the world.

A little swath of dark hair stuck to the top of her head, not completely cleaned of blood, but the color quite obvious. Her skin, as said before, was dappled with red patches, but underneath that it was a white cream dominated by vampirism's unholy gene. Her eyes weren't squeezed shut, as others were; she was slit-eyed, looking around with distinguishing eyes for the first time ever. It was hard to tell what her irises were colored of, but with his own bravura sight, Cole could define it. Most babies were born with blue eyes, but everything about her was so extraordinary that it even carried into her silver irises, evidently from the paternal side of it. She had a pair of tiny, perfect pink lips, a cupid's bow that was pinching and puckering with the rest of her mouth. And her petite nose was definitely of Nya's genetic factor. Her face shape was also Nya's. Rounded, really, and small. Her body was covered by a blanket, but Cole could perfectly hear that tiny beating heart working inside of her chest to keep her alive. She looked towards her father, catching his eyes underneath her lids.

Cole's heart broke.

She was the most beautiful thing that he'd ever seen. So small, so precious, so helpless. She was everything he lived for, everything he'd fought evil for; maybe he'd made a crapload of wrongs just getting here, to this spot, but he'd sadly do it again just so he could have her. It might've been his job to save the world, and he might've loved it with heated passion, but nothing could compare to the unbridled love, affection, and inexplicable love that Cole felt for this one tiny creature wrapped in his lover's arms. Everything that Cole had lived through was worth it. All the crap led up to this moment. In life, he would gladly throw down everything for her, spoil his little girl until she had everything, give her ice cream on the sly when her mother wasn't looking. He'd take her to the park, push her on the swings; he'd kiss her scrapes and booboos when she fell down. He'd be the one to buy her a pony—well, _Compel _a rancher to giveher a pony _ride _for free—and lift her high into the air so she felt, for a tiny second, like she was flying. Cole would show her how to ride her bike, keep her spirits up when it was _just too hard; _he'd teach her how to swim, starting with the doggy paddle and ending in the Olympics team. (If that's what she chose to do.) He'd let her spend long afternoons playing with her friends in their backyard, and every night on Friday, he'd spend quality time with his baby girl. He'd come home early from work to surprise her the nights before her birthdays, and he'd give her piggyback rides to her bed when she was too tired to walk. He'd walk with her to school on her first day with tears in his eyes. He'd be the one to grant her the permission to get her own phone, but only the kind that could call home and the emergency number. He'd be the one to threaten her first boyfriend not with a shotgun, but with his natural scary demeanor. He'd be the one to gladly rip him apart if he even so much as pinched his baby. He'd promise to be gentler when she finally found _the One. _He'd watch her walk up those stairs to grab her diploma for graduation, and he'd see her off to college with him crying like a big baby. He'd walk her down the aisle at her wedding and kiss her on the cheek. He'd love her with every inch of his soul, like any good father should. He'd love her until he was gone.

Cole fell to his knees. He couldn't hold himself up anymore.

Jay mysteriously was at his side, helping him stand back up gently, arm around his shoulders. "Do you want to hold her?" he whispered in Cole's ear. Nya smiled up at him, her eyes so full of emotion that Cole felt the tears that were threatening to burn start to slip down his nose. With a few awkward tries, they finally got Rie's tiny body, insulated in jade, into her father's arms. The weight of her head, pressed into the crook of Cole's arm, looking up at him with a face silent of understanding. She knew who he was.

Cole's tears slipped onto her blanket. He used his right hand, her body supported sideways by his left, to run his fingertips over her cheeks. Rie blinked rapidly at the sight of Cole's fingers nearing her face. He sniffed.

Like he suspected, Jay commented. "Aw, look at that," he said. "Looks like the Big Bad Cole is getting emotional! Never thought I'd see the day. Should we dog-pile him?"

Cole laughed, stuffy, through his tears. Cole hardly cried. The last time he'd cried was when he'd let go of Nya into Jay's love again. But those were tears of pain. The ones cascading now were tears of _joy, _of happiness and love and everything that could ever be entering his heart. He was smiling as his tears fell. Now, the waterworks were on, dripping onto his baby. "She's just so beautiful," he breathed, running his fingers over her perfect little mouth. "I love you so much," he whispered to her, his heart swelling with his tear ducts.

Rie didn't respond, but he felt like she knew, somehow. She looked like the smartest baby he'd ever seen. Just blinking, but ultimately, she knew what he was saying—sort of. He bent and pressed his lips against her warm forehead. "I love you, Rie," he told her again.

"I hope you won't be a Baby Hog," Nya breathed. Cole turned to see the bushed mother holding out her arms again. He didn't want to give the sweet smelling baby in his arms back, to divest himself of that solidity. It also wouldn't be fair if he _stole _Rie from her mother, some kind of crime of baby-kidnapping that he'd get his butt kicked for, and not by the police. Nya would be _all _over that one. "I vow not to be one if _you _vow not to be one?" She offered a chance at a center ground.

Cole looked at Rie. Could he resist those honest—blank—eyes, that beautiful cupid's bow, that lovely nose, and those gorgeous eyes…"No promises," he finally adjudged, slowly inching forward, uneager to let go of the one thing that he would continuously love for the rest of his life, "but I guess…if you're doin' it…I can try."

* * *

**THAT **took me a really long time to write. :/ I guess it's cuz I tried to put as much of my emotion in it as I could? *shrugs* Anyway. YAY! RIEEE!

**Fun fact**. I cried writing this. I tried to convert the emotions I felt when Ru was born into real words...it is nearly impossible...

**No BFQ. **Just enjoy the beauty of the chapter. XD

**Thank you for reading my story, you guys. You're so amazing for putting up with me. ;D Please, I insist: Go have an AWESOME day/night!**

**Love, Kairi:3**


	59. Chapter 59

**CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE:  
**Nya Chooses a Brother

Yuki had shown everyone to bed as soon as Ming Lao started showing Nya how to breast feed in the infirmary, ushering everyone out of the room quickly and heaving them upstairs. The path was through a series of halls and off-set rooms, bringing them to a complete stop finally at a row of twelve stretched out rooms, each showing off the Ninja to their own. The Clockwork Army had prepared exactly ten bedrooms along the same hallway for each of the Ninja, the only unplanned room an empty shelter at the end of it. Kai had looked at what Yuki had told him was in there, just to be sure, and was found correct: There wasn't a bed in there, no dresser or anything, just a big, wide space that would later be fixed for living. The Ninja got their own bedrooms customized specifically for the person sleeping in them, generated from the information the robots had been given by Sensei Wu about his students; to prove it, each occupied door had a plaque stamped across the white paint, telling all who just might have the space. They'd all thanked Yuki and happily waved goodbye to him, listening as he told him he'd see them in the morning, and only until he disappeared had each of them awkwardly hovered in the hallway, staring at each other. The problem with it, luxurious as it was, came to be that each of the ninja was _separated _from one another. They hadn't slept apart in almost two years. It made Kai uneasy to be so far away from each of them, especially being within one hundred meters of his beloved brothers, knowing that he couldn't keep an eye on them from some fancy queen bed all the way down the hall. Not counting his time in the jail, Kai hadn't slept without them for more than twelve months. He hated it.

They'd—meaning Jay, Cole, and Kai, since Zane and Lloyd had already been put to bed half an hour before—decided to wait for Nya to go to bed. (Her name was on one of the bedroom plaques; Yuki had said they arranged her room special for her and the little baby she'd be sharing it with.) Each of them stared at the white doors quite hard: Jay's, Zane's, Lloyd's, Kai's, Nya's, then Cole's. Right next to Cole's was Damon's, and right next to _that _was Seiko's. After that were two other prepared rooms, and finally the empty one at the end. Kai noticed the lights in Damon's room were on, but those of Seiko's were black. After simultaneously staring at the little light peeking underneath Zane's door for a while, they had tried to make mild chatter, but soon it got awkward, up until Kai had looked over to find his sister, walking in with a pink robe wrapped around her shoulders, and that adorable bundle in her arms, asleep…

She looked exhausted, but waved at them, smiling in her Nya-like friendliness. Kai had kissed her on the cheek and said, traditionally, "Hey, sis," softly in her ear.

"Hi," she'd breathed. Rie appeared to be asleep in her arms, but Kai couldn't be so sure of himself, watching her wriggle uncomfortably. With Kai's arm wrapped protectively around her, his back to the other two members of Nya's love triangle, Nya had looked to Cole and whimpered, "She won't eat."

Cole's brows furrowed. "What? Why not?" Kai had moved back then for Cole to move in, looking down at his daughter with a tender sparkle in his eyes. Nya shook her head and flipped her hair from her face.

"I don't _know," _she huffed, voice pitched with worry. "She absolutely _refused _to drink from me. She kept biting my…you know, with her gums, and then she'd freak out and push me away and she cried and fussed and I just don't know what to do. I don't want her to _starve." _Nya's anxiety showed on her face. "So I told Ming I'd come get you."

Cole pursed his lips, looking down hard at his child. His eyes had been half-lidded, taking off that bright silver that originated from his irises, arms crossed over his strong chest. Cole thought difficultly about something extremely important. Kai had known because of the strain showing on his face. Then, Jay had sidled up with his hands in his pockets, peering down at Rie Tanaka with his usual pinched expression, and offered smartly, "Sorry to be listening in, but Kai _is _standing right here and he's being more of an eavesdropper I am…Anyway, wouldn't it be creepy if she had to drink blood too? Since Cole's a vampire or whatever. A bloodsucking baby. Now _that _would give me nightmares." Kai looked at him over his sister's head, raising his eyebrow.

Cole had wasted no time, pulling his wrist up to his mouth and digging his teeth in. The sound of tearing flesh haunted Kai's ears. Then, with Nya crying, "What are you doing?!" and Jay suddenly going pale, Cole had gently hovered his bleeding wrist over Rie's mouth. A drop had fallen onto her pink cupid's bow. Kai gasped as the baby's eyes flew open, and she pounced on Cole's wrist, her tiny lips suckling the wound in desperation.

Rie was a vampire.

In the end, Cole had gone and squeezed a couple of packets of the donor blood into a bottle Ming gave him, given it to Kai to warm with his hands, and passed it along to the horrified Nya, who couldn't stop crying at the idea of her baby being a vampire. The whole time, Cole looked miserable as hell, aware that what he had done made everything else in the world so much worse. Rie had pleasurefully accepted the bottle with an eager mouth, unaware that one of her parents was practically disgusted, and the other was feeling self-loathsome towards the gene that gave it to her. Kai knew some part of Cole had suspected this would happen, but begged it not to be true. They all had.

Jay had watched everything with a green face. He had never liked any of this. When Rie was practically halfway through the bottle, he told them he was going to turn in, and quickly kissed Nya on the cheek before stumbling drunkenly into his bedroom, leaving the hallroom quieted by a brother and a couple of parents to a vampire baby. Kai felt bad for both of his brothers, mostly for Cole, who had to suffer knowing he'd damned his daughter with the gene of vampirism.

Rie quickly downed her quantity, and soon fell asleep with a full belly. Cole even patted her on the back until she burped. And that was when Kai had decided he'd leave the two to talk…privately.

…

Nya hid her face from Cole. He knew she was trying to hide the fact that she was sad that her daughter was not going to be one-hundred percent normal; it didn't make either of them love Rie any less, but it was knowing what _he'd _made her that caused him to feel sick. He held the sleeping baby in his arms and kissed her on her head, telling Nya that he was sorry a hundred times, with her same cracked reply, "It's not your fault." But it was. Where the hell else would Rie have become a vampire? Surely not the milkman. There were only two vampires in all of existence—now three—and only _one _of them was a male. It _was_ Cole's fault.

She paced in front of him, her head in her hands, body shaking. Cole held his baby's head against his shoulder and said again, "Nya, I never wanted this to happen. I never wanted her to be like me."

"I know," she whispered, "but she is."

He was such an idiot. How could he have let this happen? If he had just shown some self control nine months ago. If he'd just shown some abstinence. If he'd just _respected _her relationship with Jay more, maybe none of this goddamned shit would've happened. He should've been in command of himself, instead of letting things get out of hand. It was _his _fault. His goddamned fault. How in the hell could Cole _do _this to his daughter? In ambiguity, he said, "I just should've fricking let you go." Nya turned to him, eyes red, shoulders pulled up, hands hovering inches from her face. She sniffled; Cole stared hard at the floor, his heart aching. "I just should've let you go when I had the chance. I should've done it when I was going to. I knew what I was doing, and I hated that I was doing it, but I couldn't make myself forget that I loved you. How _much _I loved you. I couldn't let it go, and I wanted you to be with _me. _I wanted…I wanted _you, _not some other chick I'd meet down the road. I wanted Nya, not Jessica, or Tammy, or Lulu, or Sabrina—I wanted _Nya, _because she was the best woman I had _ever _met. She's beautiful, and smart, and brave. I should've thought about who I'd be hurting. Not just you, and not just Jay, but now Rie. My own daughter. I just condemned her to hell. God." He gave a sour laugh, looking at Rie, tucked safely in his arms. But _was _she really safe there? "I knew that I was doing something wrong when I first kissed you, and I swear to god it would've been easier sailing if I had just fuckin' _let you go._"

Cole pressed his lips together, setting his cheek against Rie's head, squeezing shut his eyes. _I could've done better than this, _he said. _I'm the leader, and it's _me _that screwed everything up. _Her whole opportunity at life was now wasted away into being tormented by the persona of her creature rather than being judged by the largeness of her character. Now, she was going to have this whole life stretched before her that was undeserving of the consequences that would come with being a vampire, something that Cole never willingly would have stamped upon her if he had known what was happening. Twice in his lifetime, he'd once _almost _screwed over Nya with turning her into a vampire, and then succeeded when making his daughter have the same hellish fate as he did. Was he really such an ass that this would happen to the two women in his life he loved the most?

"Cole," Nya whispered. She reached up and touched his cheek with the sweet palm of her hand, but the gesture was also one of those that made it difficult for him to let her go in the first place. He didn't want to lean into her hand the way that he felt himself doing, breaking his own heart and having her watch as he tried to reassemble it. The only thing Cole was destined for was doom. He looked into her sad, red brown eyes and sighed. He turned his head away, but she righted him with her other hand on his face. "I know how much what we did hurt our family. I know it." Cole's heart was bombed by anguish. Everything he'd done with her _did _hurt their family. More than they'd intended. "But I don't regret it," she said, eyes sincere. She shook her head. _She didn't regret it because she got Rie out of it, that's why_, Cole thought. "I don't regret that decision I made to fall for you. I don't regret it. And I know that I love Jay—I can feel it in my heart." Nya ducked her head to catch Cole's eye. "Hey. Look at me." Her fingertips stroked underneath his black hair. He shivered at the feels rolling down his spine. "But I love you, too."

"You can't have us both," Cole told her, his heart aching. If there was anything in the world that she could have, right now, given to her by Cole, then he would give her Jay, because in truth, Jay was the one that she belonged with. They were soulmates.

"I know I have to choose," she murmured. Her brown eyes filled Cole's, making them the only thing he could see, and he felt like shit knowing he was still in love with her even with the things that had happened to both of them. With as much wrong he had done just by having that desire, having the love for her, he'd destroyed so much.

"I'm wrong for you," he said lowly. Nya's eyes floated. His voice was icy like Zane's power. Unforgiving. Hard. He spoke this way to drill it through her that what she was saying wasn't making this any better, and to let her know that what they had was not going to work. Everything she'd felt for him was a lie. He'd told her everything when he compelled her to forget him. "I make all the wrong choices. I fall for my brother's girl. I hurt the people around me because of who I am. I've killed. There is nothing about me that says that I am the person you should be with, because I'm not. If anything, I'm the _last _person you need to fall for." Cole shook his head, taking her hands off his face. They fell to her sides. "There's nothing about _me _that says _you. _But with Jay, there is _everything _about him that has _you _written all over it." His heart hurt like it had never hurt before. He'd never been one to let pain get through his rock-hard exoskeleton, but what he was about to do hurt worse than it did compelling Nya into forgetting they were in love. He looked at his daughter, his heart overwhelming with the senseless love that he felt for just this tiny little thing, and it suddenly became too hard to breathe, the fantasies of watching her grow suddenly disappearing quicker than the whisk of warm air into the cold. He kissed her on the head one last time and pushed her into Nya's arms, his hands heavy without the added weight of Rie to hold against him. His daughter crowed a mewl into her mother's soft robe. _I love you so much, _he thought to his baby, and Cole sucked in a breath that wasn't enough to satisfy the empty in his lungs. This would prove to be the stupidest thing he'd ever done, by far the most painful, and for it he'd hurt the rest of his long life. He took a step away from Nya's bodily heat mixed with Rie's own. "You're going to take her," he said, keeping his voice from cracking. The hole where his heart was pulsed. "And you're going to raise her with Jay. I'm going to stay out of the picture. I won't bother you two. And despite what she is, you two will have the best life you could possibly have, with happiness and love and everything you're looking for. I'll stay away from you." The last sentence hurt him like hell. Because the 'you' also applied to his daughter. He couldn't imagine how awful this would hurt in the morning to see her and Jay with Rie, pretending as if he wasn't the father. "It's better that way."

Something was on her face. A realization, some kind of déjà vu that spiraled her thought process at his words. After a brief moment of wonder crossing her face, Nya's face went hard. Not hard and hurt, but hard and ridiculous, staring at him peevishly like she would hit him any second now. Not that it would hurt. "Cole Mitsuhide," she snapped, "we are _not _doing this again." _Again? _He wondered. "I am _not _letting you just _abandon _me, with her to raise with Jay. I would be an idiot to listen to you tell me what to do again." _Wait…_did she mean the Compulsion? Did she _remember _that?! Cole's heart jumped. Nya pointed at him. "You have this thing in your head that tells you that you need to make everyone else happy before _you _can be happy, and that's not the case. It's stupid. You are not just going to _give up _your daughter. It's _my _choice who I want to raise her with, NOT yours." Cole's face warmed. Nya stomped forward, looking ready to shove him. There was something broken in her eyes, but not a broken as in _between two pieces, _but a broken that said something was spilling out of her eyes and her lips. Cole's heart thundered with the thought of her words taking on their own track. He stood still, breath held, and waiting for the tsunami to hit, balled his fists behind him. "And if I wanted to raise her with Jay, I would've been standing out here with him rather than you, but I'm not." Nya's voice escalated, but not to a yell; just an urgent pace that made Cole keep his breath. "_You're _here, and this is _your _daughter, and the choice I made to be with you and create her was all my own, not the vampirism taking over my body at the time. It was the choice of my _own _heart to be with you, every choice I decided when I was with you, never some fake amplifying of my emotions that made me want to be with you. I might not have known this when I woke up this morning, but suddenly I remember now, and I can feel every part of me telling me that the choices _I _resolved were _mine_, especially the one to be with you_." Remembered. _Nya _remembered _him. "And out of all the choices I've made, this will prove to be the worst one, but I am _not_ sorry that I'm in love with you." Cole's breath rushed out of him at the sound of it. He stared at her in shock. Nya's face turned soft, and she smiled at him, shrugging her shoulders up lightly as she breathed, "I love you, Cole."

It was the crappiest thing of her to say, but the one thing that made Cole's rock hard outer shell melt away from his body, taking him no time to jump from a stone statue into a motioned vampire, disclosing the space between them and taking her face in his hands. His mouth met hers, with Rie between them, and Cole could feel _every _part of his body teeming with possibility. His heart beat again. The hole in his chest was gone. Nya _loved _him.

She _chose _him.

…

In his room down the hall, Jay listened to Nya and Cole quietly, his back pressed against the door as he sat at the foot of it. This morning, _he _hadn't known much about loving Nya, but this afternoon, he could feel it stinging in his veins and in his heart, a real, whole thing that he could feel his life live itself around. Now…Opportunity was gone. Out of the two brothers, Nya had chosen Cole.

His heart hurt. Jay looked at his knees, feeling tears begin to sting his eyes, at the knot in his stomach. It hurt so bad that he couldn't function. Even his normally paced breathing was ragged and difficult—just like accepting that Nya chose Cole over him.

From the bed, having followed Jay in, Kai stood, walking towards his friend and sitting down on the floor beside him. He gave a soft smile that went right though Jay, never once touching him. He rubbed his friend's back in comfort that didn't help. "_Now _who's the eavesdropper?" he whispered softly, not jokingly.

Jay cried, and Kai was there to hold him. Like a real brother should.

* * *

**Don't worry. I'm still stringing along the love triangle, guys. So maybe Cole ISN'T the ultimate choice that Nya makes. *-* **

**Note: Nya regained her memories of COLE when he was telling her that he'd leave her alone, cuz it was deja vu reminding her of when he compelled her to forget him and move on with Jay. But she still doesn't remember all of the Jay stuff, so...! XD There's a chance!  
Hopefully that didn't confuse you. **

**Please review, and go have an AWESOME day/night!**

**~Kairi**


	60. Chapter 60

**EdgeChronicles01: **Thank you to your recent review. :) It gave me strength, and I am so thankful that you like NfaN, really. I am honored to have a fan like you. Also, I'm almost done with your picture, I just have a couple touch-ups I'd like to make. It will be posted either today or tomorrow, so thanks for being patient. I tried my hardest! (You wanted it realistic looking, right?)

**All non-DA users: **Hi everyone. If It isn't too much to ask, I'd like to ask you to go visit my DA page to see some of my newer artwork, as well as my recent journal entry. I want to know what everyone thinks about that entry...please and thank you.

**EVERYONE: **This chapter is an epic chapter, and I had fun writing both Damon's POV and the final Kai POV. Damon is so easy to write about. Kai was just badass in this chapter, so I hope you like the macho celebration of NFAN'S FIRST CHAPTER SIXTY! YAAAYYYYYy! This is also the next day, but I'm sure you would've already understood that if I didn't tell you. :3

* * *

**CHAPTER SIXTY:  
**Ignacia's Blowout

Considering the whole "restless nightsix" thing that came with the fact that none of the five Ninja had spent the night in the same room, Kai felt great doing pull ups the next morning, his arms burning with an accomplished accentuates. At least he was still fit enough to heave his body weight—imagine how pitiful it would be to have lost such a great quantity to lack of physical education he'd gone through since…well, since day one aboard the _S.S Shadow Dancer. _Sweat clotted the constituency of his pectorals, and congested the defined ridges of his toned abdomen, giving him a sexy edge against the zero fangirls that were in the room with him. His hair was pulled away from his face in a ponytail, but didn't stop tiny scraps of his hair falling from the rubber band and sticking irritably to his skin. He wondered just how many fangirls he _did _still have, according to his track record of being a most wanted runaway criminal in all of Ninjago.

Kai pulled his body weight heavenwards and heavenwards after the repeated commission of sticking himself straight to the pole, practically doing gymnastics as his mid stomach pressed over the top of the bar, holding all of his body weight above the pole for seconds at a time. If he was dumb enough to let go, Kai might've been able to touch the ceiling, according to idiocy that told him he should try it. Even at six o'clock in the morning, Kai sometimes experienced very Zane-like stupid moments that just randomly came into mind, thinking he could touch the sun if he jumped high enough. A riskless hope like that was something reserved more for a qualified Nindroid of the dead rather than some resurrected blacksmith boy. He let himself drop his weight in the shelter of the calming Training Centre from the breach above the pole and sagged there, hands still gripping tightly to the silver shaft. The Centre was empty, save for the shrill rays of sunshine peeping through the protracted wooden, barred windows overlooking the courtyard out yonder, giving Kai the privacy of having the place to himself. The last of the clouds from the rainstorm formerly drenching the monastery began to wane, leaving a pinkish glow in the sky, lopsided with orange accents from the sun growing taller by age over the top of the clouds. Droplets of rain clung to the window pane.

Kai lifted himself up again. Since the bar happily faced the courtyard, he got to willingly watch birds chase each other over the wind, the dragonflies tackle prey competitively in high spirits. Lyrics of music blasted through his eardrums from the tiny buds pushed into the fit of his ears, attached to the mp3 player stuck in his back pocket. _Today, _he thought, lifting again, _I'll get to go back to Ignacia and assess the damage. _He was both excited to see his old home but nervous for what he might find of the wreckage that completely jarred the whole continent, giving scientists an endowment with their newly discovered wormhole playing sitting duck in the lot of Ignacia. Surely they'd all come crawling to the area to check it out, use equipment to test radiation levels. What else would he find there, besides tourists and police cramming the scene? Destruction beyond repair? The skeleton of his childhood home? _Four Weapons—_gone forever?

He was being paranoid, he knew. He was scared of losing Ignacia. But he swore he'd do whatever it took to make sure the place of peace was forever safe, as long as the Ninja of Fire kept his eye on it.

_…_

"Oh, my, lord."

The words came from Kai's lips, but they were the understatement of the century. Ignacia was no longer itself. Spread before him like butter creamed over his toast in the morning was a large, if not starved, gaping hole of nothing but depth and endless endlessness, ready to suck him inside if he came close to the edge. Swarming, gnats drawn to rotten food, the scientists eager to get a look at the first attempted wormhole packed at least six assistants with them, the team to individual scientists also including camera men. White lab coats, dark blue officer uniforms, and the flashes of cameras and news reporters faced every which way that Kai could turn. Yellow police tape was the silver lining of the massive sinkhole in the middle of what once was Ignacia's park, now nothing but home to a supernatural, time-sucking hell that was eager to kill the only home Kai had ever grown up in. The playground equipment that Kai used to run around was half-marred by the jaws of the growing wormhole, and the very swing set that he used to push Nya on when they were little as she cried, "Higher, Kai, _higher!" _was practically half-torn down. Eaten alive, leaving the memories of playing with the local's kids up for grabs to whomever wanted them. Kai's horror was ridden. The hillside, the park, the sandbox—everything was already gone, or in the process of disappearing.

He felt selfish for being relieved that _Four Weapons _was still safe in the event that the park was gone. The blacksmith's shop was over the hill, unmarked by strange entities casting their treacherous spells upon the place where human happiness once roamed, and Kai still had at least a couple of days before his father's shop was soon devastated by no doubt the Shadow Dancers. They were intent on making sure they got their way—and right now, it looked like they had the upper hand at taking away some of the attention of at least _one _ninja. The shame and guilt of not only losing _Four Weapons _if he couldn't come up with some sort of plan to make the wormhole, well, either stop growing or disappear, but the shame of also knowing that he'd let down his homeland would forever haunt him worse than the truth of who Kai was.

"Kai Smith" used to be a respected name around here. The honorable son of the blacksmith, the hardworking boy that also had a little edge to him. Joshua Smith could proudly clap his son on the shoulder in front of the public and say his boy would make a _fine _owner of the shop when the responsibility came to his hands, and his daughter would make a wonderful mother to grandchildren that would be the epidemy of Joshua's senior citizen life when the time came. Kai remembered the ecstasy of being someone who had no idea of his heritage, no training of ninjutzu in his tool belt beside the hammers and carvers, who liked to inflate his ego by showing off a little in public. Who, before graduation, would make all the girls swoon into his arms, and make the guys wish they had his style. He wasn't the jock, nor the nerd, nor the _anything_; he was just the guy who had the looks and the natural "coolness" that made him accepted by the social public. Looking back on his old self, Kai wished he could jump back through time and give himself a little bit more advice than the tiny tidbit he'd given to himself the _last _time he time-traveled, mocking his own reflection before punching himself in the face. He wished he could've maybe changed his high school years from the cocky guy he'd been into someone more respectable and enjoyable, someone who had the class. Like Cole. Cole was _classy._ He was sure that Cole was well-liked in his childhood.

Now, he was just a criminal in the eyes of his peers and elders. They all saw him as the wanted refugee who killed poor little Brad Tudabone, unrightfully framed by a doppelganger he came across under (first) Garmadon's hand and (last) by Kaos' will. He wished he could jump in front of the cameras and tell the world that it wasn't his fault, that there really _was _a troubled double of his running around and releasing havoc onto Ninjago for the sake of pleasing his master, but he knew he'd look like a lunatic before anyone believed him. A few times, standing on the edge of the hill, looking down on the scene before him, he'd caught the sound of his name being said. Kai Smith—the murderer on the run. _"This was his place of origin. Could he have something to do with this mass destruction as a payment for sticking him in jail?"_

_NO, _he bit his lip, staring down again. _I wouldn't do that. I love this place. It's my _home. But he couldn't run down and say it. He needed to stay low.

The people remaining to live in Ignacia were all still very much there, refusing to let their homes go down without a fight. Most of them were places that Kai had walked past every day back from school, sometimes with Nya at his side and others with a group of his friends. Just upon coming here, Kai had walked up to two or three of his high school classmates, all of which he'd known, once-upon-a-time, ready to say hello and marvel at their difference in appearance since the last he'd seen them. But at the looks of dis-recognition and confusion, Kai's words had stopped in his throat, lips moving without bereavement of words even totaling out the scapegoat of his vocal chords. He looked into their eyes and realized, as "Can I help you?" pressed from their cracked, dried lips, that they didn't recognize him in his brand new slip. He found himself stuttering lame excuses as he turned away from them, embarrassed and sad, because he honestly hadnt seen anyone, really, since...since his father died. When Joshua passed, Kai stopped associating with the people who he adored, unable to make himself see the dream beyond the deep drear he slept inside of, hiding from reality. He kept himself secluded to the blacksmith shop instead of standing up, leaving for a day, and facing the world; everything became part of routine, while Nya assured the worried friends knocking on the door that Kai was just using his intermission from everyone as a means of covalescence. he'd get up everyday. Brush his teeth. Shower when needed. Then move onto opening up shop and trying to get someone other than his comrades to come to the store for business. He completely divorced himself from his loved ones.

Then, Sensei Wu had found him, and everything changed.

Mounting the hill towards Four Weapons, Kai drew his jacket closer to his ears, trying to drown out the sounds of the media, officers, and scientific inquiries crowding his ears. He hadn't come alone, but his two escorts were off in their own little worlds, looking through the spyglass at the wormhole. Torturing themselves with the epidemic of questions their campaign kept showering them. Wu and Damon were busy moving among the other thousands of people like they were part of the crowd, bending at the knees to scrape the ground next to the wormhole. Silly ideas were being tossed between scientists, but only Wu's and Damon's were legitimate. They told Kai to go say hello to home when they got here. Flipping him off, in a way.

Kai looked over the horizon of the hill, deeply staring at the outline of his town just into the distance. Particularly, Kai could see the pond that he and the Ninja had fallen into when they'd traveled back through time to stop Garmadon from altering the past so his son would never become to be the Green Ninja. Come to think of it, that was the last time Kai had actually COME here to Ignacia...Now look at it. The weedy pond batted its tiny, paper-like green rods in the morning hour—it was only 7:46—and skulked the mud hidden beneath the light tavern of water. Kai stared at the rocks he'd hidden behind with Jay, Zane, and Cole in persuit of the past Sensei Wu, hampering himself down the path towards Four Weapons intimately. He felt his stomach tighten.

Kai started down that same path, grabbing a stray branch off the ground from the rainstorm last night and helping himself along, digging the end of the cracked branch into the dirt. He didn't need it, but it gave him a little comfort.

All two stories of red wood, brown shingles, and hours of Kai's time bellowed tall atop the small hill. Four Weapons looked down on him with the wraparound porch and broad doorgate, the "garage door" look-like that customers entered and exited through. It was hermetically shut. The sign that Kai had nailed on there the day he left with Sensei Wu was still attached, though lopsided and hanging only by one nail now rather than two. "Out of business," said the sign, but Kai had lied about that. He just didn't know how else to say of the unpredictably long-term sabbatical he'd be taking without that much notice. Nervously, as if he were walking up to a stranger's house rather than his own, Kai hesitated ahead of the porcH, playing with the straps of the red backpack he'd brought with him, just in case he found something of his or Nya's that he wanted to take.

Why was he so scared of going into his own house? Seriously, it wasn't that big a deal. It was his HOME.

He sighed and stepped upon the first board leading him across the wraparound porch, dusting off the glass to the front window and pressing his face against the cool glass. Inside, in the middle of the suspended dirt particles and odd lack of lipid cobwebs, he saw his round dinner table, with Nya's books still sitting there, unsettled in dust in the center, unlike he wouldve expected a house that was left unattended to for 2 years to be. In fact, the house WAS cryptically clean from the look outside. There werent any pieces of dirt...ANYWHERE. Shouldn't a house like this be more...filthy? Nya hadn't been sneaking back here to clean it when the guys were on missions, had she?

The day she'd brought down that heavy stack of books Kai had given her the money to buy from the bookstore, Nya had been intent on prewriting book reports on them for her senior year to get a headstart on it, so she'd have more time for Class Cabinet instead. Kai had laughed at her and said, "If you get Mr. Kalhorn, you'll NEVER get away with it. He always knew it wasn't my reports when I handed them in after having Shaun Delaney write it that morning." Nya had waved her hand at him, telling him he would have gotten away with it if he'd changed the spelling of 'mockingbird.'

The day his sister was taken, he'd actually had the motivation to get up that morning, and it had seemed like a little bit better of a day than most. Like he was starting to HEAL. It had only ended worse, of course, but it was numbing to think that Kai's life had just been starting to feel normal again when...well, when it turned for a different spin.

Kai knew that trying to open the door without force was ridiculous, since he remembered locking the door after him last he'd been here, but for some reason he did it anyway. Maybe it was intuition, or something, but Kai gasped when the door opened sans needing him to slam his shoulder into it or shatter the glass window to reach inside and unlock it. He could've sworn he'd locked it when he left with Wu. It didn't creak itself, but came into a demesne sprayed by the smell of LEMONS. Lemons! Why would an old house smell like LEMONS?

Kai's senses lit off. Something was NOT right about this. First the clean atmosphere, now the smell of lemons, and—what the hell?! Moving towards the kitchenette, Kai saw a pot boiling noodles bubbling happily on the stove, fresh and clearly having been there for a little while, not 2 years. His back started to Stitch, alerting him that something DEFINITELY wasn't right here. A boiling pot? Was this an implication that someone was LIVING here? The city had no right to sell Four Weapons—Kai had been paying taxes since he left with some of the money the ninja got from councils, and sideline jobs. He wasn't RENTING OUT the place—what was going on?

His fiery attitude kicked in. The Ninja part of him considered that this was a trap set by Kaos–and if that was the case, he was ready for it. Completely turning to Ninja mode, Kai fingered the shurikens under his shirt, ready to use them. He took a couple of steps back into the front door, and deliberately slammed the door shut, alerting whomever was in the house that he WAS here. His sneakers flitted across the floor towards the door in front of the staircase, the place where the inhabitant would have to come from. He could already hear the thumping of footsteps walking from the far corner of the house—HIS bedroom—towards the stairs. Kai braced himself with his shurikens slipping out from the wrap under his shirt and into his palms, holding them stantically, ready to chuck them at the Shadow Dancer that might come running down the steps. He hid by the wall, listening...

Thump...

Thump...

Thump...

"Hello?" a wind-chime voice from the final stair resounded the thin walls.

…

"The people here are idiots," Damon grumbled, throwing yet another pebble down into the abyss of the forlorn wormhole's doom, swallowing it whole with one complete swallow. From his crouch, he straightened his legs, pulling himself to his full height and looking around. Not even the _scientists _were allowed this close to the wormhole—"No one goes past the yellow tape!"—but thanks to some of the confusing powder that Wu had taken from Danielle's stash of potents she'd already pre-made for her comrades, just one blow of the stuff in the officer's face and they were stupid enough to let Damon and Wu step under the tape. Now, as angry people in labcoats and suits, cameramen and women with microphones, stared at the brothers with jealousy, Damon rubbed granules of dirt between his fingers. He looked to Wu, who was also looking down at the empty hole. Even as they stood here, six inches from the edge, they could hear _and _see the sounds and sight of the dirt falling into the chasm as, second by second, the hole grew bigger. It sounded like something being dragged across the grass; the waves of soil being dumped into the gape were so loud, Damon was shocked the humans didn't take that as a warning sign. What, did they think there was an _ocean _at the bottom of the pit?

Wu stroked his beard. He ignored Damon's derogatory comment. "It's growing stronger as we speak," he said, taking another step back as the six inches became four. "I do not know of a way to…satiate its hunger."

"It's _hunger? _As if it's just a child ready to suckle its mother's teat until it's full?" Damon whirled on his brother. "This is no beast. It's a mechanical _monstrosity _designed to EAT things, no matter if it's _full _or not." His arm swooped across the air, rustling the arm of his jacket. "When those bastards poured Traveler's Tea on it, it opened a hole bigger than just the one that can be used to travel between Underworld and Upperworld, brother. It created a hole similar to the one in the museum, the one that never ends. Everything will just continue to fall."

"The hole in the museum must've had an alike upbringing," Wu said, readjusting the cuff of his jacket. "Somehow, whoever created it was able to tame it from growing any bigger. There's got to be a way to stop it from growing, Damon." Wu sent a pointed look at his brother.

"On a rare occasion. We don't even know how the one at the museum got there, and I don't feel like going back to say hello to my place of death." He didn't say it aloud, but Damon also didn't want to go to the place where Misako's old boyfriend waited in the sidelines to laugh at him. Not having her there…in her place of comfort…would seem as a crime rather than good deed. "Besides, whoever created it is probably _long _dead by now. That, and we still have to find the Mega Weapon. Perhaps, if I can get my hands on it, I can wish for a device to stop the hole from growing."

"_Assuming _you can still wield it," Wu said. He took another step back with Damon. Damon sent a look at his brother, until Wu made clear what he was saying. "We don't even know if you _can. _You were supposed to be the only one able to carry it, but Eloquim managed to yank the rub right from below you." Wu tapped the ground with the toe of his shoe. "Maybe, since the Mega Weapon is not supposed to exist, you no longer are the only one able to use it. Maybe now that it has, per se, 'broken the rules,' there are no limits as to who can call on its power."

Damon sighed. Wu was right; that could be entirely true. He looked to the hill where he saw the boy walk up, going to regrow memories with an old flame or something he'd drabbled about; Damon wasn't focused on that. Since there was nothing the Garmadon men could do about this wormhole at the moment, he supposed the need to stay any longer as the next feast for the creation for destruction was not there. He nudged his brother and, dodging the dirty looks of the idiot scientists, ducked underneath the yellow tape after lending out a hand for Wu to shimmy out first. The minute they were separated from the inner circle, cameramen flooded their peripheral vision, microphones being shoved annoyingly in their face. Wu looked uncomfortable under the limelight. "Aren't you the rehabilitated Lord Garmadon?" said a woman behind a microphone in Damon's face. Another looked to him and said, "How is it that you two are the only ones allowed inside the tape? Are you special agents?"

Damon nudged Wu and bent his head, insisting that Wu do the same. They shoved their way through the crews of many reporters. _Stupid media, _Damon thought when they reached the edge of the crowd, but they were followed as the two brothers stomped up the hillside Kai had taken. He batted cameras and microphones out of his way. Wu sheepishly stayed quiet, following Damon's lead, thankfully. Who _knows _how bad this would've ended if Little Brother started yapping his mouth.

…

Kai jumped the person who came down the stairs, bowling them over into the ground with a loud thud. The flurry of long, pin-straight blonde hair flew into his face as a girl's scream filled his ears. His brain didn't process the cry quick enough to stop him from pinning her down underneath him and finding her writhing body easy to dominate, straddling her hips with his legs and pinning down her wrists as knobby knees dug into his back. The scent of lemon and ginger overpowered his nostrils—he recognized that smell from somewhere. Kai kept a shuriken, digging into his finger with a fine edge and causing a cut, in his hand, but he looked down at who was mysteriously living in his house for Garmadon-knew-how-long. Her body bucked underneath Kai's weight, but she wasn't strong enough to make him move, moving left and right to untangle her limbs from his and somehow make her grand escape. She wore a purple plaid button-down over a pair of holey jeans that Kai had glimpsed as he wrestled her to the ground; her long, waist-length blonde hair was thrown over her face, but Kai saw through the sheen of her brown eyes. She looked familiar. The girl tossed her weight around, her high cheekbones eccentrically elaborate. Kai stared at her. Some part of his memory seemed to hail to itself, giving him some flash of seeing her face before—laughing, clean, her face powdered by natural blush, her eyes motivated by mascara and shimmery eyeshadow, smile white and teeth small. At the time, she'd dyed her hair brown…

"Oh, my god," he gasped, and before she could scream in frustration again, Kai catapulted himself off her body with his calf strength, landing silently on the soles of his sneakers a few feet away. He couldn't believe himself. He couldn't believe _her. _Today was already so full of his past, but seeing her brought tons more rushing back, knocking him back into the round table. As she scrambled to her feet, Kai recognized her face when she shoved her hair back, looking for a weapon of her own. It had been a long, long time since he'd seen her. Soon after his father died, Kai had told her that he was too depressed to see her anymore. Oh, man, he'd totally _forgotten _about her, which was a little odd, but it had been three and a half years, and she was the last thing on his mind. She reached towards a drawer, pulling out something from inside: a knife. She held it out in front of her and glared, with those same eyes marked by the same makeup staring at him, and demanded of him, "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?"

Of course she wouldn't remember his face. Just like the three other people today, she wouldn't know him. Kai wanted to drag his hand down his face, but knowing her inner fire, didn't want to do so, just in case she came at him with the knife. With a free hand, she started digging through her pockets madly for a cell phone. To, presumably, call the police. "WHO ARE YOU?" she yelled again. "WHY ARE YOU IN MY HOUSE?!"

Kai set the shuriken on the table and raised both hands into the air, palms facing her body, so she could see that he wasn't going to draw a weapon on her. She found her phone quite difficult to use, and her hands slipped across the screen with sweaty palms holding it, managing to maybe dial a nine before the shaking of her hand made it too hard and the phone slipped from her hands. It cracked against the floor. "Aw, shit," she groaned in her country accent that came from those out in the Sea of Sand. She quickly dropped to grab it.

Kai, still holding up his hands, swallowed. His Adam's apple jerked. Heart thundering from seeing her again in this lifetime and also finding that she was pointing a dangerous weapon at him—not that she could catch him with it; he was a ninja, for crying out loud—his lips needed to be wetted before he could barely say, "Sophie?" in a desperate tone.

Her head snapped up from her crouch. Holding out the knife in a hand with bracelets tagged up her arm and rings branding her fingers, she narrowed her eyes at him, jumping back to her feet. "_How do you know mah name_?!" she snapped. Okay, maybe he could've tried a different approach.

Kai could feel memories of her burning, hot and white, up his abdomen, feeling remorse for forgetting her but honestly not knowing how he had. Sophie had been a big part of his life since Junior year, and up until he'd lost all meaning in life, she'd been there for him, every step of the way. Trauma took that opportunity from them, and since he'd become a Ninja, Kai hadn't thought for a second about her or their times together, much less the life he'd had here, and that felt awful to contain. More recently, the only one he'd ever thought about the way he'd once thought of Sophie was, actually, Lloyd. But here was _Sophie. _Sophie. And though he might be a criminal in her mind, and though he'd broken off all contact with her, he realized now how much he'd _missed _that connection he'd never had with anyone else in his life, how much he loved having her around, having her there to nuzzle the back of his neck when he wasn't feeling good. Now, _especially _now, to have someone so honorable as Sophie listen to him and help him get through the things he faced would be a blessing. He remembered how much he _needed _Sophie.

He'd met her at the same festival that had been destroyed this year by the wormhole. It was the year that Nya convinced him to sign up for a positional booth throwing darts at a bunch of balloons to win a crappy, poorly-fabricated stuffed animal that would mean absolutely nothing. The moon was glowing above his booth, and he envied everyone out there having a good time, but found a little fun in passing out stuffed toys to the kids who came over and suckered five bucks out of their parents for just three darts and the chance to earn a cheesy toy, unless they paid more. He'd been sitting on a stool, not even attempting to call people over to play as they passed, when a group of girls had sidled up to his booth. They were all giggling, like girls normally did when they were around him, everyone except for Nya. He'd caught Sophie's eye as the girls each paid money to play a round; he found it hard to look away from her captivating eyes. He flirted with her the whole time until the girls scampered away, giggling like hyenas, and leaving Kai to feel a little led on, until the festival closed for the night and he found her returning to the booth as he closed up. Exchanging phone numbers with the prettiest girl of a group of six, Kai found himself a partner for the next few years, dictating his life by the time he could spend with her. Joshua loved Sophie, and she became like the sister Nya never had. She was there for him, his rock, his Prom date, the center of most of the pictures Kai was ever in. He'd spoiled her, he'd romanticized her, he'd fallen for her. She lived the dream that most girls could've only pictured.

So he may never have actually admitted, in his head during his narrations, or really to anyone, that he _had _dated before so seriously, but…that was such a small part of his life compared to what he had now.

_Lloyd. _

Kai snapped his thoughts away from the bothersome Green Ninja. Now was _NOT _the time.

Kai's heart did a little dance in his ribcage, singing the song of a caged bird. His cheeks heated. "Sophie, this is going to sound crazy," he began, knowing that it did already. This whole _situation _was outta whack. She was pointing a knife at him, he'd almost mauled her with Ninja-ness, she dropped her phone and probably left a mark, and Kai was just now remembering her face. A pretty messed up love story if you asked him, but he continued, watching her suspicion arise. "And I don't expect you to automatically understand, but—it's me. It's Kai."

Sophie's face did a strange flip. It was her not believing, but the façade couldn't last very long; Kai saw the jump of hope in her eyes. "Yeah, right," she growled, trying to turn on her broken phone. "Kai wouldn't be stupid enough to come around here. He's wanted for murder. But nice try."

Still holding up his hands, Kai sighed. "Apparently I _am _that stupid," he grumbled, and to her, said, "Do you believe he did it?"

Sophie growled at her phone, but flicked her eyes back and forth at who she captured and her black screen. "What do you care?"

"Because I _am _Kai," he said. If he hadn't lost her already, he would've lost her now. Sophie wouldn't love a murderer, but if he was going to be able to go upstairs and get some of his stuff, he'd have to convince her to let him go. "I didn't kill Brad. I swear. It's hard to explain, but it wasn't me. I was framed, okay? I couldn't stay in jail because I have a duty to saving Ninjago, and…It's a long story. I had to change my looks because otherwise they'll find me—the cops, I mean—and I can't save Ninjago if I'm in a cell. But I _swear _it wasn't me, Soph. I wouldn't do that. You know I wouldn't. And before you deny that again, let me tell you something. Uh…" _How to get her to realize it's me?_

Why was he even trying to convince her? _So she won't call the cops on me. They're just down the hill, and if I get in trouble with them again, I'm screwed. And maybe if I do tell her it's really me, she'll freak out and call them anyway, since I'm a runaway murderer and all. Goodness…what do I do?_

"If you're Kai, I dare you to prove it."

Kai listened to the hopeful sound of her voice. Was she HOPING it was him? "Okay," he said. _What would only I know? "_You have a mole on your stomach, right below your, erm, yes." He pointed to the place where the mole was, on the right side underneath his chest. She frowned.

"Any idiot could know that," she said.

"Okay then. When I first met you, you were with six friends, and you were playing the game I was running at the fair—"

"People easily can know that, too." Sophie was beginning to sound bored. She grumbled something that the phone she'd destroyed by dropping it on the floor, swiping her finger over a black, cracked screen and trying to wake it. "You're obviously not—"

"Wait!" He said, still holding up his hands. "Wait! Nya walked in on us one time when you and I were in the bedroom late, and she saw us when we were—"

"OKAY!" Sophie covered her ears. "Only Kai would know that. But that doesn't prove—"

"Sophie. It's _me." _

…

They were almost to the blacksmith's shop when Wu's earpiece started rattling with the sounds of a robot's voice on the other end, connecting to him from the bridge in the monastery. He stopped in the path to press against the piece. "Yes?" He said when his name was said.

"We're picking up on multiple Shadow Dancer presences in Ninjago City," said the familiar sound of Ripsaw's voice. "The hits are pretty high; seems a lotta 'em are gathering around the tallest tower in the city. Should we send out a team to go check it out?"

The tallest tower; was that the same tower the Overlord used as his perch. Wu felt a little disturbed. Was there a connection between the defeated monster and the Shadow Dancing community? Damon looked to his brother questionably, since he'd heard Wu speak to himself or perhaps even thin air, but Damon was a smart man, having already probably picked up what was happening.

Sending a team would was a smart idea, but Wu also wanted to be present. He needed to get a better handle on what Kaos might be sending his minions to do. About to tell Ripsaw to pause the crusade, he was interrupted by the robot's next words. "Sir, by hackin' into nearby surveillance cameras, we're able to see that they've got an excavation going on."

"A _what?" _Wu repeated incredulously.

"Yeah. Seems they got a construction company out there, digging up the middle of the road. Lookin' for something."

If Wu had a heart, it would've dropped. He whirled and stared at Damon. "The Map. Go look for the Map!" He urged his brother, and without another comment, Damon took off for Four Weapons. Eloquim had been planning on digging into Ninjago City, where the Shadow Map said that the Shadow Key was, instead of the sincerely _lost _city of Ouroboros. No one had seen it since…since it returned back into the ground when Garmadon went back in time to undo the past. Wu started after his brother. "Are you sure they're Dancers?" He asked Ripsaw.

"Positive, mate. Maybe a hundred of 'em and a buncha humans."

By the outer door, Wu saw Damon jump up to the _Four Weapons _sign and kick it down. No man his age could've ever done something so acrobatic and aerodynamic if they didn't know Spinjitzu, which gave elders like Damon an easier advantage. The sign crashed down on the rock ground but didn't break. Wherever Kai was, Wu hoped he was almost finished; they needed to move. Damon looked at the back of the sign, the same spot that Wu hid the map to the four Golden Weapons once-upon-a-Spinjitzu, the place where Misako had told Damon that she'd hid the Shadow Map—but there was nary a paper there. Damon looked beat down.

"They beat us here," he said simply.

Wu pressed onto his earpiece. "Send a team out there, but a team specific to _my _orders. I want you to send my nephew and Cole, plus the Void. She can easily suck up those Dancers and end this, when they cannot be completely killed by any attacks. I also want you to send Daijiro and Maru—the Ninja could use their skills. Damon, Kai, and I will arrive to the scene soon. Just send me the coordinates."

"Roger, sir."

The house gave a groan. Damon and Wu looked at it. It sounded like something was making the whole house tilt, the place shake in the wind, but all Wu could pick up on was some negative hits from the house. He stared hard at the inner windows. It was pitch black inside.

…

_"I've been waiting for yoouuuuu." _

That was NOT Sophie's voice. Kai took a step back as the shrunken back ex-girlfriend started to become…not so girlfriend-y anymore, her eyes turning a glistening shade of complete black without _any _white—a demonic shade, if you asked him—and her skin starting to turn scaly. Her hands, hooked into claws, grew longer and pointed, and her long, golden hair turned the color of ash. Her back started to arch forward, and by the seconds, her bare feet turned into a monster's paws. She started to grow. "I knew you'd come," said a deep, demonic voice as she still grew. Kai backed up as her head hit the ceiling—but it wasn't a _her _anymore. She had a long, hairy black snout protruding from her gray, scaly face.

He'd fallen into a trap.

Kai turned and ran out the garage door into the blacksmith's shop, seeing an empty boiling pot sitting in the middle of the room. _Cool it off, and—presto. _Nothing was never an easy 'presto,' especially not making weaponry. He could hear the loud thumps of the creature coming after him. Dodging the necessities for creating the classic four weapons of samurai fighting, Kai ran for the garage door and started to lift it up, beat by the sound of the door to the house being thrown open, and the long, skinny creature poking its nasty head in. The smell of rotten flesh filled his nose. He gagged. And dropped the half-lifted door.

"Want a kiss?" the creature cackled. He realized that it was done transforming now, and as he looked at it, it seemed to be some sort of demon-centipede. It was all scaly black, except for hair in a few choice places, Sophie's clothes abandoned to shreds. Thick, muscled arms by six to a side came rolling down the creature's flanks, all waving and grabbing for things. Drool dripped in large gobs down its snout. It had a long, snake-like tail whipping out behind it, knocking against the second garage door and practically breaking it. As Kai stared, a clawed hand came swiping out at him, only missing when he rolled to the side, and knocking down a tower of Samurai helmets. "Come here, _darling_!" The creature swiped again, and knocked over a wall pinning of a couple of swords. Kai grabbed one off the ground and pointed it at the monster. It grabbed it right out of his hand, tacking two hands on the blade without feeling the pain, but pulled it out of his grip. Kai took off around its other side, making its new long tail whip around and cause another loud clutter of something falling. His shurikens had _nothing _on this creature.

He was hesitant to use fire. He might accidentally burn down the place…

He grabbed a shelf and flipped it over as the demon came in pursuit, making it trip over its legs and hands helping it move, crashing to the floor and making it cut itself with the sword. "Didn't your mommy ever tell you not to run with sharp objects?" Kai countered, and flipped into the air. He managed to grab the discarded sword and land neatly a few feet away, bringing it down hard on one of the thing's arms. It wailed. He flipped back when the tail lashed out at him.

The creature jumped up, now with black blood spurting out its new cut. It chased after him. Kai saw the tail once again hit the second garage door hard, and the impact made a dent—he had a plan. For once, Kai had a plan.

"Hey, Ugly!" He yelled, rolling underneath one of the swinging arms and jabbing it with the sword. A wail that sounded something like a bird's screech came from its fang-bared snout. "Over here!" Kai flipped back towards the dented, second door. If he didn't time this right, he would end up as a hot pancake rather than a free man. His hands tightened around the handle.

The demon whirled to face him, and with a scream, it ran at him, using all of its arms to carry it across the ground like a _real _centipede. It barreled after the ninja. Okay…ready. _One…two…_the creature came closer. Kai steeled his feet. _Three!_

He jumped into the air at the last second, the demon's face crashing hard into the garage door, the sound of metal against wood splintering his ears when it knocked out the door. Kai's sword tip came down hard on the middle back of the first shoulder blades to the creature, and driving it in, heart pumping, Kai braced his feet on the back, holding tightly onto the sword driven into the screaming thing's back. He ducked the top of the doorway and was brought into the daylight while the creature came out with his brain over brawn, for once.

He saw Wu and Damon standing by the front door, stunned and surprised. Kai yanked out his sword and jumped off the creature. He rolled on the ground until he could find his footing, watching the demon grope at the cut where black acid poured in its back with all twelve of its arms. It's tail whipped against the first garage door. "Stupid child!" it screamed. "STUPID CHILD! You fool!"

Kai's hands were covered with black, the ooze dripping from the tip of his sword. The demon whirled on him, baring its fangs, and he bunched his muscles for a leap of faith. The creature came at him from the distance. "YOU WILL DIE!"

"Not today," Kai murmured, and jumped. "NINJAAAGOOO!"

The tornado of fire wrapped around him, a blast of heat hitting hard against the creature's body, sending him dancing around the edges of the orange flames. He saw it crawl in circles around him. Waiting for him to stop the Spinjitzu. With its long body, it completely made another little circle around him. He was aware of people in the fields and joggers stopping to stare at the monster—and at Kai. The fiend reared up on its hind legs, ready to dive. His hands torched with fire around the brawny hilt of the sword. "_Fire!"_ He yelled, and knocked himself hard against the chest of the will-o-the-wisp, blow-in-the-wind monster.

He could almost hear the yells of the others behind him: _Lightning! Ice! Earth! _ It only empowered him more.

With a cry, Kai drove the sword through the monster's chest. Black acid jetted out the new wound and stung his skin, but Kai kept shoving harder, the hands groping at his shirt, his back, clawing his skin. He pushed until the hilt came into contact with the scales, and even then, he continued to shove, listening to the loud, amplified bird-scream of pain. "This is _MY _home!" Kai yelled over the scream, hoping that the monster could hear him. "And NO ONE will EVER destroy it!"

Kai looked down at his arms when a prickle of light hit his eyes. They were glowing white and red, and finally he noticed the shots of fire swirling around his body in little circles. The wind had picked up, and the grass was being parted underneath him, blowing back stray hair from his face and pressing the demon's eyes to become wide. Kai's reflection of true potential stared back at the ninja, and he grinned at himself, enjoying the fear that his opponent displayed, especially now, when he was so close to winning. Their bodies together were lifted, being carried by Kai's sword grasp on him. The demon wriggled. Kai kept a tighter grip on him. "You messed with the _wrong _Ninja of Fire, buddy," he said in midair. The creature's teeth chattered in fear.

The bubble of fire that had been growing around Kai exploded, a wide ray exploding and disintegrating the demon in his hands the second the sunburst detonated. The remains of what tortured Kai fell as ash into the wind, crumbling into nothing on the ground, crumbs and bits of it still carried by the blast Kai had sent out. His body felt heavy as it droned downwards, slowly descending back to the ground, and his muscles burned with a good feeling of triumph. True Potential now dim and starting to die, Kai's feet touched the rocky path of _Four Weapons' _storefront. He looked at Wu and Damon, surprised to find that both of them looked _proud _of him, coming from the kicked-in front door. Had they been coming in when Kai had come out? He smiled at them, nodding. People who had been watching from a distance suddenly came running towards him. His true potential fell steely and slick before it sunk back into his skin, and just as Wu and Damon reached him, Damon saying softly, "Good job, son," Kai crumbled at the knees and fell unconscious on the ground.

* * *

**Kai, you amazing macho man. :3 **That was so fun. I'm so glad I could write a fight scene! YESH!

**Oh, and no, Sophie is not a character coming for NfaN. **She'll only be mentioned ever again when Kai is describing this incident to Lloyd or something. Oh, did anyone else like that Kai thought about Lloyd when he was staring at his "ex"? xD

**Burning Fan Question: **Man, it's been a while since I've done one of these...Anyway, **Should Zane and Jay watch some more of the memory chip while they're waiting for Lloyd and Cole to come back from the city? ***Lloyd and Cole are training them Spinjitzu again, so they have to wait for them.

**Go have an AWESOME day/night!**


	61. Chapter 61

**Anonymous Guest Reviewer asking about Lloyd and Kai: **Kai believes he has feelings for Lloyd, but he might be misinterpreting his deep caring for his brother as a romantic love when it really isn't that. He isn't sure yet.

**EdgeChronicles01: **I tried to finish your Dipper picture today, but a couple things got in the way. I'm so sorry! I'll try to have it done tomorrow, okay? :) Sorry again for the wait!

**ALL READERS: **This is before Ripsaw comes in and tells Cole and Lloyd they have a mission. :3 Just a little normal morning stuff that I am very pleased with. xD

* * *

**CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE:  
**The Secret of the Glasses

Zane kindly ate his breakfast in an aura of very awkward morningness, with Jay sitting across him at the table empty of all human beings, his eyes sunken in and tired. Zane sensed he hadn't slept well due to some reason according surmise to Nya in some unprecedented way, but he didn't know how to bring it up. He chewed on his toast thoughtfully as Jay pushed around a grape on his plate with the prongs of his fork. The morning was quiet, except for the two white notes they found on the stainless steel refrigerator door, one from Sensei Wu and the other from that girl Koemi, both on two opposite subjects. Koemi's said, in bubbly, girly handwriting:

_Went 2 skool- Rikku drove me 2day! C U l8r! ~Ko-ko. _

Sensei's was much more formal:

_Damon, Kai, and I have traveled to Ignacia to assess the damage taken by the wormhole. Our time away will not be long. We will return within forty-five minutes of leaving. I will see you all when we return. I have a few messages for you each, though, and please do think about them. I expect you to have a translation of each as to what you think it means, PERSONALLY, when I return. These are all very important lessons that will make you all stronger.  
__**TO JAY:**__ Do not go picking fights with people you do not want to hurt.  
__**TO COLE: **__If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you might as well make it dance.__**  
TO LLOYD: **__There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one: keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.__**  
AND TO ZANE: **__Have a nice day.  
~Sensei_

Jay had read the strange part of his letter with a pinched face. His only comment was, "That's some serious chicken scratch." But Zane wanted Sensei to come home faster so he could also return the favor of telling _him _to have a nice day. What a gentlemanly thing to say!

Zane had fun buttering another piece of toast by himself, taking his knife and swiveling it over the crusty surface. Cole and Nya had yet to arrive to breakfast—although Zane's inner clock told him Cole was probably doing a workout in some room somewhere, and Nya perhaps was exhausted from a long night with the baby—so he left them some extra food, until he realized that Cole probably wasn't going to be in search of a waffle with jam on it when he felt hunger strike. He had yet to see several people that fine morning, but the absence of the little boy Bokuyo made him a little curious, since he was under the impression that little children woke earlier than their parents did. Under that parental note, Seiko also seemed to be missing, and Zane was the only one concerned that he hadn't seen her after she'd last disappeared in the hallway the night before. He also wanted to sometime today find Yuki so he could apologize for the things he may or may not have done to and for him in their past lives, however that may work; it might seem strange for you to hear, but Zane had seen everything through Yuki's eyes, everything he'd done to the woman Yuki loved—and he felt disgusted with himself for being such a man to strike down the lover of someone who didn't DESERVE that—what had been going through Zane's mind? It was some sort of thing that allowed him to see his past, and though Zane didn't connect with doing it, he _knew _he'd done it, much like Jay knew he'd been with Nya though he couldn't remember their relationship. With _that _being said, Rikku was also someone Zane wanted to talk to, so he could maybe get to know the brother he didn't remember a little better. There was also that nice lady Maru that Zane wanted to go see, and the new baby he wanted to meet.

So many people he needed to keep track of…

"Mornin', guys," said a sleep drugged voice, scratchy in his throat. Zane turned fully on the bench to see Lloyd shuffling into the room, wearing a pair of green striped sleep pants and a matching button down. Zane smiled at the tacky way it matched his own white pair; he plucked at the material uncomfortably a second before noticing that Jay was wearing the same pajamas, just in the color blue. He frowned. He'd found this spread over the white comforter cloaking the bed in his room, folded neatly just for him. Had the others found theirs in a similar way?

Lloyd seemed not to notice, and stretched out his arms as he yawned. "What's for breakfast?" he asked, already grabbing a plate off the corner of the table and stuffing it with a thick waffle. Jay ignored him. The grapes on his plate being chased by the fork were now swirling in more furious circles. Zane sensed a little bit of frustration and upset in Jay's heart; he added that to his "Things Zane Needs to do Today" list, along with the hundred other people he needed to locate and find. There wouldn't be a minute he wouldn't be busy!

"How did you sleep?" Zane asked conversationally. He folded his toast. Lloyd poured a cup of tea from the kettle, sitting on a heat-repellant pad on the table, then sat down on the bench beside Zane.

"Like a baby," he said. "I was _so tired." _He shook his head. "Yesterday was…freaky."

"You're tellin' _me," _Jay grumbled. He didn't raise his head. Lloyd, a forkful of buttery, syrupy waffle halfway towards his mouth, stopped and frowned at the blue boy. He flipped a golden lock out of his pure blue eyes. (Zane noticed that they were not the purply, reddish color that they had been yesterday. Had something happened between now and then to upset that balance of color?)

"Um," the Green Ninja sounded.

Zane sighed. "Jay will not disclose to me the reasons for his depression."

Jay's head, cradled in his hand with elbow pressed to table, snapped up. He didn't glare at Zane, but stared at him, almost looking through the surrender. "I am not depressed," he objected.

"Fine." Zane turned to Lloyd, still frozen with his food in midair. The young boy looked at Zane with a slightly turned corner-of-the-eye, mouth halfway open. "He will not disclose to me why he is being moody and unconditionally fretful over some sort of situation that I alone cannot understand because he is stubborn and irritating. I do not like it, and his frank obstinacy is starting to make my circuits grow split ends."

Lloyd stared at him for a moment, like he couldn't understand what Zane had just said. What _Zane _couldn't understand was _why _he was receiving that stare. He didn't accidentally speak that Japanese that Seiko had tried to teach him yesterday, did he…? "Uh…" Lloyd's face said he'd stepped in on a couple's fight and things were getting awkward, but Zane was not a couple to Jay and they were not fighting. Just disagreeing. Lloyd cleared his throat. "Circuits?"

Zane opened his mouth, but words to speak did not come from his lips. He jumped at the unsuspected voice. "I love how you're _not _a nindroid, you _don't _remember being one, but your freaky vocabulary somehow worms its way into your everyday phonics." Cole stepped into the kitchen, clean from a shower, in a taut black T-shirt and comfortable jeans. Zane felt a little underdressed to the way Cole looked much older than himself in the clothing combination he'd chosen from his closet, and a bit embarrassed to be wearing the same thing the other two were, just in a blank color. Standing next to Cole in a lineup wouldn't score him any brownie points for his sleepwear. His cheeks heated a little, but Cole mistook it for scare from his comment. His hand stretched down and, standing over Zane's shoulder and grinning, clapped him on the back. "I was _kidding. _No need to look like somebody just told you Santa isn't real."

Cole reached over and ruffled Lloyd's hair, earning an irritated noise around the waffle stuffed down Lloyd's throat at the gesture. He smacked away the olive-toned hand with a glare at the laughing vampire. _Something has changed, _Zane noted on the way Cole's face looked. _He is different, indeed. _By his daughter, perhaps? "C'mon, dude, knock it off," Lloyd said around his food, patting down his hair. Zane tried to ignore the way that he spoke with his mouth full. "I hate that."

Cole crossed his arms over his chest, still standing. "I know," he said. "And this time, you can't cry for Kai to come save you, 'cause he ain't here." To prove it, he tapped his fingers in a little beat against the white paper sitting on the table next to Koemi's.

Lloyd snatched it, squinting at the print hard, before finally admitting, "I can't read it."

"Neither could I," Jay said. Zane saw his cheeks slightly flush, and his eyes look everywhere but at Cole—had something happened? _So much to keep up on, _Zane thought. _I wish there was an app for my touch-screen pad that allowed me to be instantly informed of the latest news on all my friends. _Jay met Lloyd's eyes. "Sensei's handwriting is like he's a kindergartener or somethin'. I can't read chicken-scratch. You'd think that being an all-powerful respectable teacher of Spinjitzu would make you have better scrawl than _that _stuff." The next part was dropped by Jay's voice to a mere whisper, leaning forward and covering the left side of his mouth to hide the secret, even when he said it really loud. "I don't even think he writes with the real alphabet."

"No," Lloyd said, but not in agreement with Jay. He set down the paper. "I can read Sensei's writing just fine, it's just—I don't have my glasses."

There was a moment of silence. Lloyd's fork clanked against the plate as he stabbed another carving of fluffy waffle, but Jay's raised eyebrows weren't missed. Even Cole looked a little taken aback. "Uh, I don't think I heard you right," said Jay, eyeballing the Green Ninja. "Did you say '_glasses'?" _

Lloyd glanced up, looking surprised himself. "Yeah," he said honestly, his tone suggesting that everyone should've known this. "I _have_ to have glasses if I want to read something. You know. Like, normally I wear contacts, but I misplaced those somehow. I don't wear them every day, because I can see where my feet are going, I just can't…read words. And examine tiny details. C'mon, you guys knew this already! You've all seen me wear the glasses before! I had to get them after I turned older, because something went wrong or somethin' and my eyes got all stupid. Remember? Nya personally took me to see the eye doctor. Quit starin' at me like I have two heads, Cole, I'm serious!"

Cole shook his head. "I really don't remember that," he confessed sheepishly.

While he and Jay looked dumbfounded, Zane raised his hand high into the air, a student in the middle of class dying for an answer. Only his was more of a comment than a question. "Actually, I didn't know you existed until two days ago," Zane looked into Lloyd's dubious blue eyes under his crinkled forehead. The Spinjitzu master popped another waffle into his mouth. "So I don't count."

"Yes, you do." Cole poked him. Zane's tongue tipped its peak out the front of his closed lips, holding the spot where he was poked. Why did that tickle? It was his _arm. _"You existed before you knew of the existence of the existing Green Ninja, and at the time your memories of knowing that he existed already existed, so you _knew_ he existed and therefore whenever you saw him wearing his glasses, you do count because at the time you knew he existed."

The purpose of that had to be to make Zane's hard drive overheat and his metal innards cave in with overthinking, even if he didn't have a hard drive OR metal innards. The words seemed to fit well. Zane stared hard at the gray eyes of his friend, trying to mull that over in dumb silence, until holding up the white flag. That statement didn't even make SENSE. "Thank you, Cole. I just became _that much dumber _because you told me that_," _Zane told him blatantly, feeling less smart already. Cole laughed.

Jay looked ready to pounce on the glasses idea for humor. His smirk was not well hidden. "I can't picture the Green Ninja needing _glasses. _Isn't that ironic?" He lowered his voice to the tone of a dramatic announcer, much like the kind you heard on the background of trailers for movies. "The prevailing Green Ninja, destined for awesomeness, fighter of evil and destroyer of darkness, who can command all elements at will, who can kick butt anytime—" The last two words dropped from the fake voice to a tiny one. "—needs glasses." Jay started giggling like an idiot. Zane rested his elbow on the table and buried his face into his palm. "That's so _anticlimactic." _

"What's wrong with glasses?" Lloyd argued, waving his fork in the air at Jay. The blue ninja hid his laughter behind his hand, tears practically squeezing out his eyes in some sort of unsaid joke that really had to be funnier than the one in the fact that Lloyd needed glasses.

"Nothing," Jay giggled uncontrollably. "It's just hilarious that you need glasses when you're so badass." His face was a little more entertained than it was before, when he was being the annoying, stubborn Jay that Zane wanted to hit with a dead fish. At least, though it was a little rude, the glasses stupendor was keeping the blue-faced joker in a little higher spirits than before. Thankfully, Lloyd was not swayed by the words from his friends, and rolled his eyes at it instead of becoming upset.

"Glad to know that you think I'm badass," Lloyd said, forking another piece of food, "but it happens to the best of us." Zane put his own toast in his mouth, happy at the taste of food and butter emulsifying him with the splendor of it. Cole moved past them all and leaned against the wall instead, not daring to find a seat beside Jay—tension between the two was obvious—and not wanting to crowd Lloyd and Zane. He seemed more comfortable with the wall, anyway.

Jay _FINALLY _put that stupid grape he'd been playing with all morning in his mouth. Zane could've danced the salsa at how (unobtrusively) happy he was that his friend was not deciding to become an anorexic. "So if I start calling you Four Eyes—"

"Do it, and you're doomed." Lloyd's threat was backed by laughter, but there was meaning behind it. Jay snorted.

"Ooo! What about Specasaurus?" The laughter, loud and clear, from Jay laughing at his own joke reminded Zane of the good ol' days, when it was just him, and Cole, and Jay, all friends in one big giant house with Moustache Man, Ed-nah, Eh-_duh, _and Mee-sah-co. He took another bite of food.

Lloyd grinned, but with the yelp that came from Jay, Zane assumed he'd kicked him from under the table. "I'd suggest that you held off on the name calling until you've at _least _learned Spinjitzu. You're defenseless right now." Casually, Lloyd reached for his mug, hand curling around the cylinder, and a moment later, the sound of something bubbling made Jay peer into the cup nosily. The tea was boiling in the mug, steaming. Zane smiled at the wit and the amazingness of the heat coming just from Lloyd's hand. What a cool thing to be able to do!

It was Jay's turn to roll his eyes. "Ooooo, that sounds like a _challenge. _You're _so _on, buddy. When I learn Spinjitzu, we'll see who beats who." His eyes gleamed with Jay-like mischief.

"Deal." Lloyd grinned. Zane didn't like the sound of this. "May the best ninja win."

* * *

**That was a pretty normal chappie. Too bad Ripsaw will have to ruin it. -.-"**

**Burning Fan Question: In your opinion, who will win this "showdown" between Lloyd and Jay? **Hehe, it's nothing too major, just probably a little combat in the courtyard or something. No one will die or anythin'.

**Thank you for reading, my wonderful friends, and go have an AWESOME day/night!**

**~Kairi**


	62. Chapter 62

**Hi, guys. :3 So, erm, this chapter is fillie as well as a little odd...It just feels odd to me. Maybe it really isn't, but. **

**The next chapter I'm almost done with, but I think I'll finish it later this evening. **

* * *

**CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO:**  
Underscored

The morning was going great until some god above thought the moment of normal for the ex-nindroid, the vampire father, the Ultimate Spinjitzu Master, and the upset comedian needed to be destroyed. Cole supposed it was bound to happen sooner or later. With the Shadow Dancer breed still thriving, there weren't moments for real-person things anymore, especially for the ninjas destined to save Ninjago.

Apparently, that god above thought they needed a rude awakening.

Cole remembered the broad-shouldered robot's face from their days aboard the Bounty 2. Cole had known him to be loud, obnoxious, irritating, and stereotypically designed to be a bouncer for a club over a guy following orders. Cole took one look at the huge biceps, ripped sleeveless dark blue shirt, dark green camouflage khakis, and gave a loud groan, hoping that everyone else could hear it. Lloyd took a glance to Cole in exploration for any treason, misunderstanding.

"Alrighty, mates!" yelled Ripsaw Cheshire from the arch doorway. Lloyd and Zane jumped four feet in the air at the sound of the commander voice. Ripsaw the undercover puppy-kicker, running a hand over his closely cropped dark hair, stomped into the room in combat boots. Because of how he walked slightly-leaning forward, the dog tag on a chain slapped his wide chest, and jingled to Cole's sensitive hearing. There were words on the metal, but he couldn't make out any words from this distance.

Ripsaw stopped in the middle of the room. "You got your first mission!" He pointed at Lloyd and Cole with separate hands, subtracting Jay and Zane from the team. "A horde of Shadow Dancers are in Ninjago City with a construction team and knocking things over, digging into the cement, and causin' a helluva mess for us to clean up. Directly from Master Wu, I was sent to get YEW"—he jerked his finger forward at Lloyd, making the scrawny boy jump—"and YEW." He pointed at Cole. The vampire made a show not to flinch. Ripsaw was just loud and annoying, and Cole hoped that he wouldn't have to ride in the same vehicle with this joke.

"Construction?" Lloyd repeated. He sounded as if he already knew what they were doing. "They've got the Shadow Map, don't they?"

Ripsaw shrugged. "We'll find out when we get there," he said. He stopped, looking around the room. Missing something important, as it were, but Cole couldn't think of anyone but Kai he might want to see, who happened to be scoring his own mission already. "Daijiro and Maru were also told to come; they have suits waiting for you two down the hall. I was also told to get the Void. Where is it?"

Cole deflated.

"The Void."

As in, his stupid little sister.

"She's a she, not an it," Lloyd snapped correctively, sending his best glare at the robot as he wriggled out from the suck of the bench to the table. His feet padded against the wooden floor, towards the exit. No glances were further given to the army-cucumbered Ripsaw the Undercover Puppy-Kicker. UPK in short. "I'll get her up."

"We have to hurry!" Ripsaw growled. "Yew two go get yer suits on, and yew"—UPK pointed at Zane—"go get 'er. GO! Clip-clop! Time runs out faster than a boyfriend on his pregnant girl!"

Cole growled at that last one. He tried not to make any connections from that comment to himself, following the long fingernailed thumb jammed over Ripsaw's finger into the annihilation of the hallway, skipping quickly after Lloyd to keep up. If there was a horde of Dancers digging at the city, that meant that they were going out for something deep underneath the surface—the Shadow Key was somewhere underneath Ninjago City, wasn't it? Cole got a feeling in the pit of his stomach, one that wasn't very comforting to a leader. Zane fidgeted with his fingers. "I do not like this," he grumbled. "I do not like this at all."

…

**~Yang~**

I felt sick to my stomach, taking that walk down the hallway towards the two figures waiting at the end, an apocalypse hovering over doomsday's eve in momentum to crash down on Ninjago and kill it with a stone fist. I'd already met the two youngest members of the Shinobi clan, who both seemed more inexperienced than they were to have serious knowledge of how to fight a fight, and had yet to come face-to-face with the seniors of Uncle's tag-team of Ninja-replacers. I'd heard from Ming that Daijiro and Maru came from a deep part of the past, and had already known ninjutzu long before my uncle came to find them. He probably hadn't even needed to train them anything. Cole and I drew nearer and nearer to the two figures in the hall, and each step brought me to a closer visionary of who exactly I'd be fighting alongside. They wore black suits of kimono, belts tied around their waists to keep the robes closed, concealing weapons and other things, and for a second I considered that maybe one of them would whip out a shuriken and chuck it at me. I couldn't feel any threats, however, and edged closer by the pace of my light jog.

Both of the Shinobi members I had never met before were stunningly unblemished in the genetics department, and both making me think that whom I was staring at was heavily Photoshopped into looking like an otherworldly incubus and succubus, trying to lure us into their traps. Part of the way they were looking at me—that to the heavy scent of lemon rolling off of one or all of them, I couldn't tell—made me drunken with suspicion. There was something about both of them that screamed inhumanity. I was worried that we'd be running with wolves—or, should I say, running from them. My pace slowed as I came to a gradual stop in front of them both.

Daijiro was a man with long, loose golden hair shinier than mine, and golden eyes to match, his skin white. His neck was restrained by a thick black band. He looked like more of an elfish character out of a blockbuster movie featuring "beautiful" (and not to mention inhuman) creatures and aimed at teenaged girls, where they'd have posters of him pasted to their walls so they could sigh dreamily at him for hours, but I'm hardly the type to think that men are beautiful, since that would be really inappropriate and nasty. His mouth was twisted into a coptic frown.

On the other hand, under-depleting her movie-star partner, Maru was your average, dark-skinned girl with fluffy hair glued from her face in a ponytail. Her almond-shaped chocolate eyes made me think a little bit about what her hereditary background was. She was certainly averagely pretty, up close, and nothing of Playboy-worthiness. The vibe of serious inhumanity didn't go away when the space between us was disclosed. She looked like the type of girl who got attention from all the men in high school, but if she came from a "deep past," I had doubts that high school was part of her extracurricular plan. A similar band of black went around her throat.

Maru held two neatly folded black kimono sets in her hands, reaching out to pass one to Cole and I. I noted with a queer eye that she still had a pair of something black left in her hands, tucking it under her arm so I couldn't see it further. "Come into this room and change, but quickly," she said in a silky voice. Definitely the voice of a succubus, in my opinion. Please don't try any funny business, I thought, remembering the "R" movie that I watched one night when I was bored out of my mind in my parents' house. Succubae were extremely tricky, sexually devious creatures that I had nightmares about for weeks after I finished that stupid movie, hiding underneath my covers like a little kid. I had a hard time falling asleep and made sure that I locked all entrances to my room four times before I could try to go to bed. I didn't want any temptatious women sneaking into my room to steal my soul, and virtues, in very inappropriate acts. "We can't waste much more time." Maru said, shooing us with her hands into the nearby room. Cole jumped inside, and I shuffled after, finding myself a little weak-kneed.

It was an empty room, except for a couple of recliners, a round table splitting the two, and a flower pot holding a fake tulip. _Wow. They really overdid the TLC,_ I thought sarcastically.

I hoped succubae didn't actually exist. I didn't even get to close the door completely before Cole ripped off his shirt and dropped his drawers, making me cringe and shut my eyes, shaking my head to rid myself of the second time in my short lifetime that I'd seen Cole's dick. My cheeks flamed. "Dude. Stop that," I said, turning so I wouldn't see it when I opened my eyes again. "You have absolutely no shame."

"Oh, I have shame," Cole said from behind me, unbothered. I tore off my shirt. "I just don't have shame over my rockin' bod."

"You're starting to sound like Kai." I pulled on my new pair of extremely breathable, comfortable pants and adjusted them to comfort. They were perfect for movement.

"There's no person in existence quite like him," replied Cole, giving me a little smile as he walked past, already jiggered into his new suit without lag time, and patting me on the shoulder. I gaped at his quickness. I was still fitting on my shirt! He threw open the door, and I followed a second later, after closing both sides of the kimono. I kept tying the sash at my hips down and stuffing away the tails of my shirt as I stepped into the hall again.

I had bare feet. The second I came out, Maru shoved a pair of sneakers at me. "We don't have extra ninja slippers, so these'll have to do." It's hard to hide my fear of her face. She gave me a strange look when my tiny smile never reached my eyes, and I didn't linger to take my shoes, socking my feet and shoving them on. I know it's ridiculous, but the thought of what if taunted me near close thoughts to succubus. What if she WAS one? Then what?

She'd steal my soul, and I'd die. Like that guy on the "R" movie.

I felt very, very, very small. I bent over and lifted my legs up one knee at a time to put on my shoes and tuck in the flyaway laces. In that position, I saw that Cole already had his shoes on—talk about being so ninja nobody could see you move. I saw him smirking haughtily at me. I curled my lip for jokes.

Daijiro slipped on a pair of gloves, more interested in adjusting them than looking at either Cole or me, giving me this feeling that he didn't like us any more than Cole liked snakes. His conceited upturned nose made me feel colder towards him than I did to strangers. Well, human ones, anyway. What are they? I asked the Eye, expecting no answer, as usual.

Maru tucked a piece of flyaway hair from her face. She put her hands on her hips. "Our transportation has to be quick," she explained. She talked fast and slow all at once. It was…creepy. She seemed to have two different voices, doing covers of each other in layers that went at two speeds but never failed to sound sensible. My face twitched. See? SUCCUBUS! "At the base of the million steps, there is a wooded area that hides our separate workshop. Inside we have vehicles. We don't have time for traffic, so we're using vehicles that Julien designed. Is that alright with you?"

"Julien designed them?" Cole asked. Maru nodded at him. "This should be fun."

"It is not for fun," Maru told us, turning on her heel. "It is for—"

My back started to burn. Then, I heard it. A bowelful scream, a shout of incompetence and anger that I off-guardedly found coming my way. I stopped mid-fear of Maru.

"TWINKIES MCSNICKERDOODLES!"

Ah, jeez.

I turned to see Seiko stomping towards me down the hallway, her hair tucked into two low ponytails on either side of her chin, and her eyes caked with shadow and rim red. She looked exasperated, to say the least, in her soft white robe. Zane, trailing behind her, struggled to keep up with her tiny-person stride of flame and fame, finding her way towards me. Weird gravities pulled us closer.

She wouldn't meet my eyes.

"WHAT IS HE SAYING, I HAVE TO GO FIGHT EVIL NOW?" She yelled. I rubbed my right eye with my knuckle. "I AM NOT FIGHTING EVIL SO EARLY IN THE MORNING."

I rubbed my chin. "Sensei's orders," I told her, but she ignored me, sweeping her hand over the surface of the air. Her bangs flipped into both of her eyes that wouldn't look at mine.

"I DON'T CARE. I AM NOT GOING TO GO FIGHT EVIL." She shook her head, gluing herself to the spot. Zane nervously tapped his tipped fingers together a few feet away. "You're stupid if you think Imma go fight evil for the greater good of the peoples living on this forsaken continent at eight in the morning."

"Would ya do it for a Scooby snack?" I asked, waving an imaginary box in front of her face. Seiko rolled her eyes and punched me in the chest. The blow was puny and didn't hurt, but still.

"NO. I am NOT—"

"We need you," I said. I held out both of my hands, flapping them once in the air. "You gotta suck up the Dancers. C'mon, Seiko. Let's—"

Maru stepped into my side, brushing past and holding out the extra pair of clothes she had brought. It wasn't a kimono, from the looks of it, but a stretchy material itself. Seiko's WTF look didn't stop Maru from shoving the pack of whatever it was into Seiko's arms, then brandishing a pair of combat boots from thin air and shoving them atop the multitude. Seiko came overwhelmed by everything she was being given. "Change in the next door room," she pointed to the one Cole and I had changed in. "Hurry. We don't have much time."

Seiko gave her a look. "Lady—"

"Seiko, can you just—" I started.

"She's too chicken to fight," Cole grumbled from silence.

I looked at him over Seiko's head, her black hair whipping in my direction so she could see him, taking to Cole's disinterest in meeting her eyes. He cared not to face her, probably not giving a damn that she heard him. The challenge was already set for her, but at this point, it was a challenge that was coming from her brother, and it had to hold some sort of connotation. "You know what, actually, I think I will help you crush evil under your pinky toe," Seiko said to Maru. Defensive and determined to prove her brother wrong, she accepted the load of her things and shuffled past me into the room, slamming the door behind her.

Seems that even final decisions change. Especially when you're a moody fifteen-year-old.

Three minutes later, the door was thrown open, and Seiko stepped out, except she no longer looked like the Seiko I had known for a long time. The whiplash was almost as bad as in Noel's castle of doom when he transformed her from a happily grimy, smelly blind girl into a dark princess, the change this time not being so harsh as that. My jaw came open. She wore a stretchy reflective leotard with long sleeves down to her wrists, completed in fingerless leather gloves, stripping her legs completely bare until the tall tops of the combat boots in mid-calf. She pulled her hair back from her face in a low ponytail. Those bangs of hers hung in her secret eye. I had to admit, she looked pretty scary, more scary than she usually was when I didn't know if she'd hit me or not.

"This is a bit too excessive," she told Maru angrily. "I look like a hooker."

Cole snorted behind me. Everyone ignored him. Maru looked apologetic, but her excuse was, "Sensei Wu had that especially designed for you. Its amount of tightness is supposed to be calming—"

"I don't care. I _look_ like a _hooker_." Seiko picked at the taut material, stretched over where her curves should've been but weren't. I felt like a douche for thinking that. I'm so sorry. I'm an idiot. Seiko turned on me. "Quit _staring_ at me, Twinkies, it's ANNOYING!" I averted my eyes. "Freakin' creeper." she grumbled. I smiled.

* * *

"WHOOOOOAAAA," I couldn't help but awe at the three uncovered vehicles in front of us, the works of their design similar to something Dr. Julien would've made. I was struck speechless other than that. Before me was a tall cycle, a wide ground treader with two belts around four wheels, and what looked like a condensed form of Jay's Storm Glider.

The cycle was a model that was sleek, designed for speed and agility, with _huge_ wheels. The handles were hidden by a concave windshield; two blazing giant headlights were off, but looked like huge eyes staring out the giant door behind me.

The ground treader had a pointed nose, but no drill to scrape holes into the earth. The makeup was wide and painted into the color of dirt, the wheels banded together by two extreme belts for pushing on the ground and moving things along, with a couple of decorative rivlets on the side. The low-to-the-ground style would make it easier to move.

The jet-like glider was a smaller version of what I remembered to see as Jay's Storm Glider, although rather a silver than blue, and lacking the certain Jay-ness that came with it.

"Oh my _goodness,"_ I gasped, moving into the garage and running my hand over the rubber of the treader's tires. Behind me, Maru tossed the keys to Cole, telling him it was all his, and he clicked his tongue at me as he mounted the tire I had just slapped. His haughty look made me roll my eyes at him, but the joke was on me. I turned to her as she tossed another set of keys in my direction.

"I've been told you don't do well with flying things," she said, walking towards the flyer on the other side of the middle cycle, "so you'll be riding the _Soraicycle." _I looked at it, the sleek paint job, and nodded. "It moves pretty fast, so keep your head on straight." Maru pressed a button, the keys lifting up the glass shield of the flyer. She jumped inside with Daijiro climbing up her heels.

I pulled myself atop the cycle, looking at Seiko. She stared at me edgily. "You comin'?" I asked, turning on the keys and revving the gas on the handle. She rolled her eyes. All the dials lit up, the buttons surprising me, on the small dash of the cycle. I saw various "special" buttons that would probably invent an attack that would save my butt sometime. Seiko walked towards me, her boots stepping hard on the ground underneath me, as beside us the treader roared to life. the engine cut loud vibes through the air.

"Don't let this go to your head," Seiko warned. I reached out a hand to help her mount, and felt, a second later, her body on the back of the cycle. The flyer lit colors as it vroomed to life, too, and the roof, with a _zzzzinnngggg, _started to open. Cole's tires scraped the dirt below us for a second before it bolted out the door at _huge _speed. The dark shape took off out the opening.

"Hold tight," I told her, waiting for her arms to loop around my waist. I knew she'd hesitate just before she actually grabbed me, her hands grabbing onto the material of my kimono. I reached behind me and pulled up my ninja maskood. "This is going to get bumpy."

The flyer lifted into the air.

I twisted the handled gas. The cycle jerked, with a loud noise, and strutted out the door to saving the city.

* * *

**So yes. Odd.**

**Go have an AWESOME day/night!**


	63. Chapter 63

*******NOTE: This chapter is reaaallllyyy important, and a lot of things happen here! Everything is rising up now towards the peak of "Of Yin and Yang," which will be ending in probably 10 chapters or less! **

* * *

**CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE:  
**All Bets Are Off  
~_Yang~_

The wind blew into the slit where my eyes were, taking off across the sand after the ultra-quick treader, only a few feet ahead of me. I stayed off to the side so that the sand from Cole's backlash couldn't get blown into my face and potentially blind and kill me. Slash us, I guess. In the distance, the city's skyline grew larger, the flashing lights trying to convince unlucky glancers to buy whatever product they were selling. I looked into the air at the silver flyer, taking off at the same speed as Cole and I were moving; I turned the throttle of the cycle to make it go faster, hearing the large tires dig into the ground below and push us further ahead. We caught up to the tip of Cole's treader, and I saw him glance over at us out the corner of my eye, hearing the speaker on the dash of my cycle crackle to life. "You doin' okay out there, kid?" said Cole's voice from over the transmitter. I smirked, but never replied.

Seiko's arms were tight around my waist. She buried her face in my back, trying not to have to see the outside world. I supposed it was the speeds she was going at. I had grown immune to it with my many dragon rides—those things go faster than the speed of light, I swear—so my stomach didn't jerk and twist and get lost anymore, but I knew just how it felt to be wracked nervous by the flight of a speed demon. I moved my shoulder blade back a little to nudge her cheek, fighting to keep ahold of the handlebars. "Alright?" I asked her in a raised voice.

Seiko only answered with the tighten of her arms around my waist. She kept her body pressed against mine. I remembered my first time on the dragon, my stomach dropping and my whole head going numb, feeling like I was going to throw up, but after a few more rides that throw up feeling turned sweet. We tore through the Sea of Sand's spawn, the Lake of Sand, and moved into the outskirts of the city in no time. I for a first time gave the thought of where exactly Cole was planning on going with the treader, until I heard a partway come on through the speaker at my chest, keeping my eyes on the road but also listening. It was coming from above us, in Maru and Daijiro's flyer. It sounded like Maru was the one doing the talking. "Cole, there is a green button just underneath the steering wheel; just before we reach the tar road in the city, I want you to push it."

"Hear, hear," came Cole's reply.

The city neared. We were closing the distance quickly between us, and I had a feeling that Cole was going to use that green button any second now. I kicked up the throttle and took it even faster yet, testing the limits of exactly how fast and far this thing could go. I took the thing many feet in front of Cole before I heard him say, crackling in the background, "Here I go!"

I looked at the rearview mirror. The pointed tip suddenly retracted its black peak, revealing the drill I had known would be there sooner or later. Cole's vehicle took a dive into the ground, and pretty much answering the question of how he'd make it through the town; maybe the plan was to have him pop up at the excavation site or something. Cole's voice cracked onto the 'com. "Hey, I can track you guys on my screen!"

"Just follow us," replied Maru. "You'll know when we get to the site."

Cole laughed. "This is awesome."

The ground vibrated under me. Cole had to be the culprit of that with his drilling. I turned my head slightly to say _Seiko_, the dirt path turning into tar and white and yellow lines, pavement directory markings. "Hold on and don't jump off," I reminded her jokingly, and Seiko nudged my shoulder with her forehead.

"Trust me, I'mnot going _any_where."

I yanked the throttle onto full force, pulling into the city's enthrall at a shorter speed than the mega-master of Maru's flyer. A streak of silver was left in the sky in their wake. The little cars on the road made me a little nervous, and I struggled to swerve around them, hearing people honking at me and making a show of screaming at me. _Saving the world, here, _I wanted to tell them, but followed the silver streak in the sky as Maru took a sharp turn without comment. I yanked on the brake throttle and made my own crappy turn, almost taking out a car in the process. It swerved to the side to miss me. "Sorry!" I yelled, feeling guilty. Seiko chuckled against my shoulder.

We passed _Doomsday Comics, _and I felt a little more guilt. Rufus…

I followed the streak, trying to be more careful than I have been in past turning situations, and decreasing my chances of killing people. I got screamed at a lot, though, and was surprised not to have any cops tailing me; maybe they were all taking an early holiday for what happened yesterday, not that any of them remembered past Cole's Compulsion.

I heard the construction before I saw it. It was the beeping of the equipment that made me realize we were just around the corner from meeting a truckload of Shadow Dancers—and then some—digging into the city, looking for the Key. I revved the engine and cut down the last couple of yards between me and the wraithlike workers. Seiko dug her nails into my shirt and cut deep enough to scorn my skin. I shivered euphorically.

"There they are," hissed Maru. I eyeballed the look in the distance.

The Dancers blocked off a pretty large rectangle of the road crudely with cars they undoubtedly stole, shoved to block off the way unprofessionally. It occurred to me then that the police probably didn't even see this mess, or they were all under some hypnotic power of Kaos's that stopped them from doing justice. There were a bunch of Caterpillar backhoes, bulldozers, a mini wrecking ball, and two large excavators, ripping into the paved road, both of which were in motion at the moment. Chunks of tar, with and without paint, were shoved to the side and in the back of a dump truck. Around the site, tons of little creatures—fat, wide, big, tall, little, short, and shadowy—scurried around, comically wearing yellow hardhats to fend out falling chunks of tar. They moved quickly, but like the last batch of Dancers I had fought, a lot of them were see-through. I hoped this time I'd at least be able to beat the crap out of them.

I turned the cycle as it lithered to a stop in a side skid. I practically threw Seiko and myself into the barricade of crushed cars. My foot came off the rest and onto the ground to help steady us. Seiko clutched onto my shirt and growled, "NICE, Twinks. You coulda killed me!"

I switched off the ignition. "Be glad I didn't," I said, and chucked out the kickstand with my heel.

The flyer landed on the top of a building nearby—I wondered how long it would take Maru and Daijiro to get down here, but didn't know, turning to the feel Seiko slipping off the back behind me. Her boots crunched against the gravel.

The _gravel _began to shake. I looked over the obstacle of the car line to see the zippered tip of a drill start to peek through the ground, making the remainder of the intact tar push upwards like a volcano and split in different formations, widening its mouth so that Cole's treader could poke through. The Shadow Dancers screamed girly little screams and scattered. The ground jerked when Cole's front tires came into flat contact with the tar.

"Showtime," I murmured, and jumped on top of the blue car in front of me. The Dancers all gave that scream again, turning to me when they heard my feet slam on the metal roof. Tiny little bodies ran in every direction hysterically. I could tell this battle wouldn't be too hard—if I could actually _touch _them. My hands gave way to green power.

Cole's glass tinted shield pulled back, and he jumped out, a silvery scythe in hand. It must've come with the vehicle. With his black hood pulled up, every part of him concealed except for his eyes, I felt old times coming back again, just minus three key parts of the deal. Cole jumped from the top of his tall treader and came down hard on the earth underneath, sending a shockwave through the ground and shaking me a little. He came up from his crouch. "Let's rock this," he said to me, giving me a wink. I grinned at the kinky pun, and flipped off the car after him.

Cole swung his scythe, knocking aside several of the construction-working demons, which probably would be a good profession for them if they weren't working for the Kaos Company, ready to bring chaos to a town near you. They actually moved underneath his swing, meaning he _hit _them—great news to me. I turned on my own and brought out my power on the batch rolling towards me in cloaks and hardhats. I could've sworn that Shadow Dancers couldn't walk in the sunlight…

I punched aside the tall and kneed the tiny, blasting out my powers. Why was it that we were hitting them today, when I still could see right through them? I got confused, but enjoyed the fight, ready to punch out my hormones for the greater good. All my power focused on this fight.

The kimono I was given was presented greatly for battle. Kudos to the weaver.

I didn't notice Maru and Daijiro coming into the game, using their shurikens and ninjutzu to fight. Only a couple of times I saw the flash of golden hair and the dart of dark skin, warning me they were near. I did a backflip to avoid being hit by a crowbar.

Suddenly, from the blue, a rush of quick air torpedoed around me. I was caught off my balance, stumbling and almost giving myself a talon to the eye, sliced by a demon clocking me across the arm with his nails. Before I looked to see what was happening, I zapped him with green aura. "Personal hygiene," I panted, pointing at the nails as it writhed on the ground, "takes care of that."

I turned my head. I didn't find the super demon I was expecting had almost bowled me over, but actually _Seiko, _holding in her hands a hammer. I didn't know what part of the site she'd gotten it from, or when she'd joined the party, but she wielded it well, smacking aside every Dancer that came at her with serious force. Being hit by a hammer had to hurt, but I was prepared not to let myself find out. The weight at the end of the tool helped it swing easier through the air when she did a wide spin, taking out her enemies in a circle.

I kicked down my own. A tremor went through the ground under Cole's foot, taking out another round of enemies.

We so got this.

…

Kaos slipped inside, unseen.

They never saw it coming.

Thanks to the Shadow Map in his hands, he found the tomb entrance underneath the city guarded by two stone Shadow Dancers, telling him that this was _exactly _where he needed to be. The stone was golden, but from years of never being touched, it was falling apart, cobwebs attached by silk to the pillars holding the earth from falling down on top of the tombs. He stepped over pieces of stone, lighting the dead torches on the walls as he went, touching them with his own torch for well-being. Unfortunately, he was not blessed with the ability to see in the dark, and found the entry open.

Like prophecy said, the tomb would be nothing but a long row of doors down a long, unlit corridor, only one of which that would contain the Shadow Key. If Kaos' intuition worked against him and sent him picking the wrong door, he'd face demise worse than hellion. He only had one chance to pick a door, and whichever door it was, unless it was the one that held the Shadow Key, the whole tomb would collapse. The strain of the situation was very, very, _very _traumatic, and he had to be choosy in his decisions the second he entered that door. He whirled around to face the two henchmen he'd decided to bring with him today, holding onto the arms of his hostage as she struggled to be free. Misako Garmadon wrestled with Kayus and Fang, her gray hair flipping into her glasses. She fought to get back freedom, but Kaos needed her a little longer. He smiled thinly.

Kayus' backpack started to fall off his shoulder. He yanked on Misako's arm. "QUIT. MOVING. BITCH."

Misako ground her teeth. Kaos doubled back to stand in her face. He wore his metal mask, the one hiding his _true _face from her—just think, a layer away from the truth! He kept his hood high so she wouldn't see any more than his eyes, once a damning green but now a sparkling blue, and glared down at her. "I promised you your freedom if you'd just do this one last thing for me," he said. "Don't you want to be with that pathetic son of yours?"

Misako flicked her hair out of her face. "Your word is nothing to me," she said. "You _must _have something up your sleeve."

"Well." The thin smile underneath his mask returned. She couldn't see it, but he wished she'd be able to see how irritated he was with her face. "As long as you continue to fight, the farther away the sincerity of my word gets. I suggest you obey." Kaos turned, facing the gap of the entryway. Once he stepped inside, there'd be no turning back. "Now. Let me think. What was it? _'Many a room is bestowed,'" _he recalled of the prophecy written in the language he couldn't read on the Shadow Map. _"Though strange fate could never behold…"_

_Daring of what power lies beneath,  
One chance you get, one chance you seek.  
Make a wrong turn and the tomb will collapse  
Your corpse will lie in remainder of thunder that claps  
Pick the wrong tomb, and your demise will you meet  
Pick the right tomb and the world you'll defeat.  
The Key lies in gold wrapped in satin  
Whisper the words of ancient Latin.  
Out you will walk to the light of day  
Or if not, it is in death will Hell give you pay._

Kaos moved into the shadow of the tomb's doorway, and was greeted by thirty doorways, twenty-nine of which held a trap, and only one that had his Key. If he thought about it, he'd come so much farther than that last Deadly, Eloquim, had come; he had conquered things that the old goon _never _would've managed to defeat. He'd been too stuck on getting the Ninja out of the way and doing his own thing, but Kaos was more intent on _power _than Eloquim had been. He was focused on torturing the Ninja and showing them that _he _was the alpha male. That he was the leader. Plus, his powers never hurt to add to the mix.

The second Kaos stepped inside of the tomb, the whole room lit by some magic. He was able to see all of the doors in front of him, the traps and the real. Only Kaos could enter the tomb, now that the barrier between the real world and this one was broken; Kayus and Fang stood on the outside, Misako grunting with struggle. He took a deep breath behind his mask.

Let the games begin.

…

The Sea of Sand annoyed Jace. A lot. Why was he stuck out here, anyway, standing in front of a stupid junkyard and carrying a bag full of seven bottles of Traveler's Tea? Why did Fang and Kayus get to have all the fun, being in Ninjago City with Kaos and the prisoner? Why was it always Jace and Ash being left behind to do all the nasty work?

He kicked up dirt, grumbling in irritation as he came upon Ed and Edna's Crap 'N' Junk baloney shit that made him roll his eyes. This time, instead of having the whole gang here, it was just Jace, while Ash was off in Birchwood forest with his own seven bottles of Traveler's Tea. Yesterday, Kaos had said they'd have to wait for the night to start dropping the bombs, but this morning he'd seemed eager to change plans. Jace mocked the voice of that hiding, good-for-nothin' S.D that had all the magical ability in the world to do as he pleased, including commanding a bunch of Ninja-wannabes into doing what he yelled. He dropped the sack of bottles at his feet and pushed open the top flap. This was RIDICULOUS. And STUPID.

He picked the spot right at the opening of Ed and Edna's junkyard, and dumped out the first bottle of tea on the ground. Immediately, the sand started to glow blue and slowly begin to sink. Jace dumped the next of seven plastic bottles on top of that same spot, and had to take several steps back as the hole started to form. The blue ring on the outside of the growing wormhole threatened to swallow Jace whole, but he just poured one bottle after the next and chucked the container into the hole, never to be seen again. The wind picked up. It was being sucked down into the new wormhole, along with all the sand that was falling inside as it expanded. Jace dumped the last chug of Traveler's Tea into the next big thing, and watched it disappear into the blue abyss. When the wormhole died out of blue glow, it would leave a giant, endless hole in its aftermath, just like the one in Ignacia.

Wormhole #2.

While Ash worked on Wormhole #3 in Birchwood Forest and Kayus would make Wormhole #4 in Ninjago City, Elomne von Teufel—Jace's rival—would be making one in the Fireman's Circle. Wormhole #5. The formation was cool, really. This star-shaped pattern. The best part was that it was ruining a part of the Ninja that held a lot of their memories:

Their birthplaces.

At least, after all the gruel, they'd have torn down the Ninja a little more. He felt accomplished in that sense. He started walking back to his car, swinging the backpack at his knees, when he looked to the passenger's side of the seat, finding Danielle very uninterested in what was happening. Since she exchanged her robot body for a human one and making her body older, Jace was having a hard time adjusting to how attractive she still was, an older woman whose sex appeal was way higher than it was when she was a robot. Even better yet, Danielle was _human _again, and that meant that he could do things with her that he'd never been able to do before. Her voice was lower, but she still looked like herself, just…older. More grown out. Sexier.

_Definitely _sexier.

He thought Kaos was trying to taunt him when he insisted that Danielle go with Jace on this little road trip, since nobody went with Ash OR Elomne, and she was Elomne's wife. (Elomne _did _have a girlfriend, and Jace _did _know that, and he was pretty sure that Danielle knew too. So that's probably why it didn't bother Elomne to have her go with the Bizarro boy head over heels in love with her.) He shoved himself into the truck angrily. He didn't know why he was moody, but he _hated _it.

…

Kaos opened the door.

All bets were off. This was a matter of life, or death, and either path of his taking would be on his own account. There was nothing that could stop him now, the second his hand closed around the old diamond knob. He'd used a little bit of his supernatural sense in trying to sort out which door it could be. It was tough, but he'd listened to all the quarries and queries and ideas that Eloquim had thought of in trying to solve what door to use. There was the possibility that Kaos's sense was off, and that there was something throwing off his ability, but he didn't care. His thought that this path was the way to go was so overwhelming that the seventh door from the left wall could've had his name written all over it. His mask hid the grin over his mouth.

This was it. Everything he'd done worked up to this, to getting the Shadow Key and _finally _overthrowing his enemies, once and for all, to bring hell back onto the earth the way it _should've _been.

The gate whooshed open into a dark room.

…

"Cole!" He heard his name shouted, but Cole couldn't take time to pry his eyes off the battle in front of him. He took out several Shadow dancers with the scythe that someone had packed in the seat of his vehicle—thankfully. He didn't know how he would've dealt without having one—and not only was he holding in his hands a weapon he was quite familiar with, but it was also a sort of EMPOWERMENT. It had been so long since he'd actually HELD a scythe in his hands, felt the heavy weight of a reaper swinging in the air and slicing through the clouds and bones of his enemies. Cole hadn't touched one of these babies since…Well, dang, since he lost his Golden Weapon. It was miserably long since he had one, and man, giving Cole a scythe was also giving him back his strength. He remembered how much he loved to fight the bad guys, be a ninja, and most importantly, be around his brothers. It seemed like he'd lost sight of that. But now, weighted hold of the scythe in his gloved palms, brought him back to the present, and snapped him into who he really was.

Cole was the _leader. _He came up with the plans, made the sacrifices, and kept an eye on his three (well, _four) _best friends. He was the strong one, the one who had really started to forget that when Sensei died. Now, it seemed like he'd let all of his personality fade into a façade, turning him to a guy more focused on his relationship with Nya and personal battles with Jay, more tender towards the idea of hating his sister forever because of her track record with schizowatchamacallit, but that wasn't who Cole was. He was the guy who secretly loved dancing but never could; he was the guy who adored cooking but had a hard time following the recipes; he was the closed-off brother but the one who gave his heart to Zane, Jay, Kai, and even the twerp Lloyd. He was the base of the pyramid. His brothers relied on him, and depended on him, and he was the smartest when it came to figuring out what step to take next.

The scythe really gave back that power. His strength. His hard heart melted and restored.

He whirled in Spinjitzu, summoning the earth before him. He spun out, facing Lloyd's direction and calling out the younger boy's name. Lloyd's eyes flickered to him, letting him know that he had all his attention but couldn't quit the fight, before he let his mind kick into its usual swing. The gears started turning. Cole looked up at the wrecking ball and its unmanned driver's wheel.

"Seiko!" He yelled, ruling there was actually no hate towards her in his mind. Maybe it was the scythe, or maybe it was him being tired of being tired of being hateful. He saw his little sister, busy punching the snout of a dancer repeatedly with her knuckles filled with jet black acidic blood, her anger being beaten into pummeling out this creature. She had a fluster to her that had to come from being blown out by so many people at once. Cole looked at her, then back at the wrecking ball. "Seiko!" He swung his scythe once, then turned himself into a Spinjitzu tornado, whirring towards her. He stopped at her side and mauled the monster that was creeping up behind her, looming, ready to attack. She whirled on him, eyes glassy.

"What was that for, Sparkles?" She demanded. Ducking and grabbing her hammer from the ground, Seiko clashed another demon.

"He was going to kill you," Cole said. He brought his scythe down on another enemy.

"Pshhha, and _when _was the last time you cared?" Seiko's tone was elastic. She sounded irritated. "I don't need your help. I can do this myself."

Cole rolled his eyes. "Sure you can." He kicked away another demon coming up on her blind spot.

Seiko gave him an annoyed look. "I _got _this. I don't NEED yo' help, Sparkles, I got 'dis." Seiko cracked down her hammer again.

"Okeydoke, Thor," Cole eyed the hammer she used as her only defense, taking out the next two demons she didn't see. "My job is to protect those who can't protect themselves. And though you're doing great, I think you still need me. Besides…I have a plan."

His sister growled down at the body of a dead dancer. "WHERE do you things keep COMING from?!" she screamed, then glanced at him. Cole worked hard to keep away all the other foes until she gave him another unfair yowl. "Stop it!" She told him, giving him a hard shove. Cole stumbled back a few steps. "I _don't _need your _help!" _

"Fine," Cole said, looking back at the wrecking ball. His temper didn't soar, keeping him level-headed like old times. It felt…endowing. "Then _I _need _your_ help." She gave him a half-lidded query out the corner of her eye. When she wasn't looking, Cole took out three more lurkers. "I need you to open up the Void," he said, and pointed, "over there, by that building." He pointed to it, directly across from them. There was a large crack in the building's glass windows that his finger lined up with. Cole looked down at his sister. Suddenly, she didn't look so confident that she could kick ass anymore. "Lloyd and the others will direct the Shadow Dancers into a cluster at the middle of the tar, then I'll get in the wrecking ball and knock them all into the hole. Then, you'll shut it, and we'll be rid of these annoying things." Cole kicked off one from his leg.

"Cole, I…" Seiko shook her head. Her eyes had gone very glimmery. Cole jumped up and spun out circles around her, kicking out a good moat of Dancer-less ground around him, so they could talk in peace without being interrupted. She looked small, and undefined; he reached out and put both of his hands on her shoulders, ducking his head to catch her eyes. Seiko looked very doubtful of herself; she always had, though she tried not to show her insecurities. There was no one who knew that better than Cole did. She often liked to be challenged, told that she _couldn't _so she could prove that she _can, _but today, he was changing the rules.

He squeezed her shoulders. "You can _do _this." Cole's smile was genuine. You know…maybe…maybe she wasn't so bad after all. "I _know_ you can. Now, let's go kick butt—as a team. Just like old times?"

Seiko took a deep breath, meeting his eyes briefly. "Just like old times."

…

The hallway where his bedroom was happened to be the way he was walking, but as his room was farther down, he did not take all those extra steps there; instead, he stopped at a door near the beginning of the hall, looking at the silver plaque with a girl's name on it, hearing her voice from inside the room and his heart falling a little. She was talking to someone, but her voice wasn't the only one in the room. If he listened hard enough, he could pick up on the slight cooing sounds of a baby.

Jay swallowed the bile in his throat, squared his shoulders, and told himself, "You can do this, Jay. Just knock on the door. She'll answer." In his hands, a flower he'd stolen out of a pot on the way here was rolled between a thumb and index, almost to the point of wearing down into nothing. "Just knock."

His fears made him run a hand through his quickly-combatted hair in the mirror down the hall. Praying he didn't look like an idiot, Jay lifted his knuckles to the wood under the silver plaque. Three loud raps. At least he hadn't bailed out yet…

The room inside fell into silence. A moment later, he heard a rustle, and Nya calling, "I'm coming!" at her visitor. Cheery and bright, Jay's heart started again. He was sweating bullets, jittery, and scared as hell. He wanted to turn around and run, because he was sure that he was going to implode with the vomit he was going to puke. Oh, goodness, what if she opened the door and he threw up on her?! She'd _never _like him then!

Regardless if last night Nya had decided she wanted Cole, Jay wouldn't stop trying. He didn't know why, or how, or for what reason, but Jay was in love with her, and giving up the fight to a way-more-attractive vampire was just not the kind of attitude that Jay had. She—she meant a lot to him, and he didn't want to lose her. Not to _Cole. _No way. Just yesterday, he and Nya had almost kissed, but he'd been stopped. Now, there was nothing but Cole standing in the way, since for some reason she changed her mind about wanting to be with Jay. It was EVIL. Pure. EVIL. But he was NOT giving up on her. Never.

She opened the door. Have you ever looked at someone, and they were so beautiful your heart broke? Jay's split the second he looked at her, wearing a clean red summer dress, her long hair in a braid down the side of her neck, covering up one of the dual thin straps holding up her dress. The ruffled tresses that reached her knees swayed as her hips moved to the side. Nya smiled at him, flipping her bangs out of her eyes, and Jay's tense body softened underneath his pajamas. He cleared his throat. "I feel horribly underdressed," he said.

Nya laughed. Her eyes lit up the room, and with a pink rose in her cheeks, she outglowed even the stars in the night. She was so beautiful. Jay's heart pounded, feeling her look down at the bottom of his pajamas, revealing her eyelids painted with colored shadow a shade of brown that complimented her creamy eyes, and long black lashes falling to her cheeks. Her eyes rose to his again, still laughing. "Your jammies are quite handsome," she commented, and Jay nervously chuckled.

"Ah, I don't think so," he said, and trembled. He should've changed first. Oh, man, he was making a _terrible _impression—"I, um, found this for you." He held out the flower, palms sweating so much that the hoped the stem wasn't sticky. The yellow petals seemed to bloom when Nya touched the plant, her personality and life giving the flower the will to grow in her hold, blossoming into something that strived to be as perfect as her, but nothing—especially not a cheap flower—could match how heartbreakingly wonderful Nya was.

"Aww," she breathed, "just for me?" She pulled it to her nose and sniffed the center, flashing Jay with her sparkly eyelids again, and he doubted himself. Was the flower too much? Maybe he should've waited to give her one for a rainy day. Maybe coming here was a bad idea—she _had _picked Cole, after all…

_No, _Jay thought, standing his ground. _I won't run. I love her. So much. _

"It's beautiful," Nya told him. She beamed. "Thank you."

"Y-yeah," he stuttered. His nerves jumped higher. _You can do this, Jay. You've got this. Just ask her! No harm in trying, right? _ "I, um, I, you know, wanted to, um, ask you—wait a second." He smelled the air. It smelled like… "Are you wearing perfume?"

Nya frowned. "No. I'm allergic to perfume."

Jay frowned, too. It really _did _smell like perfume. A sweet, gently potent smell that could've come from the flower, but he didn't think it was _that _squirted with fake smelly stuff; he hadn't smelled it at all since stealing it away from that pot, leaving him to believe it was something else. It was very…lemony. His head almost felt really high on the smell of it, but it was just… He coughed. "Um, okay. That's…weird. So, anyway, I wanted to ask you—you know, I mean, I get it's what you feel and all—this is really hard to say in the middle of a hallway—"

"Jay?" Nya asked. She was trying to contain a smile. "I think you need to take a minute. You're starting to talk fast again."

Jay stopped and took a deep breath. _Just be cool, _he reminded himself, and pressed his lips together. His face flushed a little. "Sorry. Um, any…uh…Nya, so are you, like…you know." His voice dropped to a whisper. Nya's smile faded away. "Are you…_with_…Cole?"

Nya took a second to stare at him. She blinked a few times to kill the blur that was starting to form, and Jay thought he saw a hint of remorse, although it was gone too quickly to tell. The quiet in the hallway for a second made Jay feel rude for intruding onto her life; it wasn't his place to be asking, really, and he felt ashamed. Jay rubbed his neck. "You don't have to answer that," he said quickly, trying to eliminate his nosiness. He took a step back.

"Jay…" Nya said slowly, and he felt his heart drop a little. But her next kumquat was nothing like he expected: she started to _laugh. _She repressed her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with her giggles. Nya took the two steps it required to meet Jay, and without need buried her face in his chest, wrapping her arms around his waist as she laughed. He didn't get what was so _funny. _Had he said something?

He held her back, and having her in his arms felt like the most real thing he'd felt in a long time. Jay compulsorily bent down and pressed his lips to the crown of her head—he wanted more than that. He wanted to hold her hand and get to look at her and not be embarrassed that he was looking at a forbidden fruit. He wanted to kiss her, and hold her just like this, and have her fall asleep in the crook of his arm. He loved her. He knew it.

"What, uh, what's so funny?" He asked, and pushed her back gently so he could look at her. Nya's eyes were watering with tears.

"Oh, Jay," she said, and nuzzled into his throat. He tilted back his head. "Cole and I…though we got Rie out of it…We're not _together. _Where did you get an idea like that?" She asked, and Jay's heart exploded when she laced her fingers in his at their sides. He felt her mouth brush his jugular tentatively, and his reply to that was a heavy intake of breath, capturing it and keeping it locked away until she pulled back. Jay looked into her eyes.

"I _heard _you. Last night. You had a…discussion in the hall, and you told him you loved him. That you chose him. And stuff." His voice ended cracked. He tried not to feel how BLISSFUL it was to still know she was holding her hand. Nya shook her head and gave him a funny, disbelieving look.

"No…" She looked confused, her voice funny. "Jay, we never talked about that." She moved closer to him. "I don't know Cole well enough to choose him."

Jay squinted. Was she…_lying? _"I _heard _you," he insisted. "I did. You two even made out."

Nya shook her head. "No," she said, "after Kai left, Cole and I said goodnight and I went to bed."

"That was a long 'goodnight,' then," Jay sounded sour. He tried to tone his voice, but his lack of belief was making this so hard. "I'm not an idiot, Nya. I know what happens behind closed bedroom doors."

She shook her head, desperate to make him believe her truth. "Jay, I'm not lying," she said. "We didn't do any of that." She tightened her grip on his hand. "It must've been a dream. I'm being honest. I wouldn't lie to you."

Jay snorted. "You did it the first time," he said, although his voice didn't have the weigh to carry heavy capacity. "You never told me that you had sex with him behind my back."

Nya's face turned red. "I don't remember much of that," she said, "and I can't tell you what I was thinking. But Jay…" She smiled, trying to make his flat face turn normal again. "I don't want him. As much as Cole may be attractive, the relationship we had is gone, and I couldn't just _go_ with him, especially after everything he told us yesterday evening." She took his other hand in hers, lacing her fingers in his. Nya stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. "I have no reason to lie to you, Jay. I have nothing to hide."

Jay closed his eyes. _What should I believe, _he thought, _her, or my memory. _He distinctly remembered listening to that conversation through his bedroom door—Kai heard it, too. When the Ninja of Fire got back, he'd have to ask him if he remembered that, and there would be a conspiracy theory if Kai said that he didn't remember. Jay had felt awful all night BECAUSE of the things he'd heard.

So was Nya lying?

Or was something much more supernatural going on?

Jay buried his face in Nya's blossom-scented hair. He kissed her hair again, wanting more, more, more. He closed his eyes. "I want to believe you," he whispered, bringing her forehead up to rest against his. Nya's eyes were open, her lips parted, waiting for him, but Jay stayed his distance painfully. He kept their foreheads together, and he shut his eyes, thinking hard about everything he had to keep track of. "But what I heard…"

"Jay, I _swear _I didn't," she said, taking it upon herself to nuzzle his cheek with her nose. _Our mouths are so close, _Jay thought, feeling her warm breath fan his face. Just one move, and he could kiss her, just like he wanted to SO BAD… "I swear. I don't know what it is you heard, but it wasn't me. I wouldn't do that to you."

_You did it once, _he thought ruefully.

"That's because you didn't."

Jay jumped at the sound of someone else's voice. He whirled to see Kai standing there, wearing a black ninja suit, his arms crossed over his chest and his hair pulled away in a ponytail, taking his time moving closer. Jay's face reddened at the idea of being caught like this with his friend's little sister, but at least the situation wasn't so bad. Kai looked apologetic. "Sorry to interrupt, guys, but I need to steal Jay."

"Kai," Nya breathed. She kept one hand in Jay's but reached for her brother, outstretching her hands for him. Kai met her with a gloved, black palm, and after looking for permission from Jay, stole her from him to give her a tight hug.

"Hey, sis," he said. He looked up at Jay. "What you heard wasn't real, Jay. It was Kaos, controlling you. He somehow got past Dani's wards and took over your mind—something similar happened to Zane last night. He was just telling me about it."

"So..." Jay looked to her. "She wasn't lying." Deflated with the little bit of emotion he felt earlier, it was now replaced with culpability. He felt cruddy for doing this to her and making _her _feel like the villain, when it really was actually the REAL villain in the first place. _Damnit! I hope I didn't screw this up!_ He put his hand over his mouth. "Oh, crap, Nya," he groaned, and reached for her. "I'm so sorry!"

Nya smiled. "It's okay. It's not that big a deal." She laced her fingers in his for a squeeze, then dropped his hand. It gave him hope.

Kai looked concerned. "Sorry 'bout this, sis, but I'm shoplifting you of your boyfriend. He's gonna come with me."

Jay frowned. He was being stolen? "Uh, _where?' _he asked, stepping forward.

Kai looked up at him, golden eyes flaming with battle blood. "We're going to go beat the crap out of some Shadow Dancers. I know that you don't know Spinjitzu yet," Kai added, "but it's inside of you, somewhere. It just needs to be unlocked. And plus, it's a great learning experience." Kai quickly pecked Nya on the cheek. "I've got a suit for you downstairs, Jay. Come with me; Zane's already waiting. Say your goodbyes." Kai waved his hand towards Jay. Nya turned on him.

"You'll be back," Nya told him, and smiled towards Jay. He reached out and touched her cheek.

"It's not goodbye," Jay agreed, and, doing like Kai, kissed her on the cheek, though his kiss lingered longer. Nya brushed her own mouth over his nose. "It's until next time."

Nya touched his hand affectionately. Jay still had a chance with her, giving him MORE hope. "I'll await your safe return."

Jay smiled. "I'll always return for you. And when I get back from a really cool battle, all torn up and winded and epic, I'm going to take you on a _wonderful _picnic in the park. We can bring the baby, too." He nodded into the doorway. "I'll even buy you an ice cream."

Nya laughed lightly. She buried her face in his shoulder for one last time. "It's a date," she whispered, but it sounded like her voice was cracking a little.

They looked deeply into each other's eyes. He felt his love for her soar—until Kai broke the moment. "Such a hopeless romantic, Jay." He smiled goofily. "Come on. We have our friends to go save." He waved to Nya, grabbing Jay by the arm and towing him down the hall he'd just come from. "Don't worry, Nya!" called Kai, idiotically grinning. "We'll return for you! ALWAYS!"

"Oh, c'mon, dude, you're ruining it!"

…

Kai had come back with Sensei and Damon for the weapons they didn't have and the Ninjas they needed to complete the raid on Kaos's game of tit-for-tat. He was playing his pawns now, but he had to have some kind of extra idea hiding up his sleeve, otherwise he wouldn't have done this. Kai was aware that they were risking a lot by going head-first into the fight with every reinforcement they had, driven by an ugly feeling that this was the last chance they'd get to act on Kaos before all the Underworld broke loose (which was literal.)Before Damon, Wu, and Kai got to Ignacia to grab the Shadow Map from the place Misako had hidden it, behind the sign on Four Weapons like Wu had once, the Shadow Dancers must've snuck in and robbed it. Now they were entertaining themselves digging in the middle of the road like a little kid dug in a sandbox before dinner time. Come to think of it, Kaos was _just like _that little kid, rolling his plastic construction toys over the imitation sand, the kind bought in stores, and destroying sand castles. He was laughing while he made the anthills collapse under the tire of his Tonka trucks. Then, the little plastic people living in his little sister's doll houses were tortured by him taking and burying them deep beneath the sand to the point of no return. The plastic, eternally-smiling father and mother would be separated from their teen daughter and son, their younger two siblings being chucked into either opposite end of the square, wooden-red sandbox. The puppy, the sleeping kitty, the beds, and the friends of the family were all stuffed uncomfortably in desperate positions beneath the surface of the sand. Later, his sister would scream and cry wondering where her tiny toy people went, and her brother would only smile and look out the window at the toy box that hid the bodies of her fake happy family.

Okay, so maybe that scenario didn't fit Kaos's bill, but it was the same concept. If the Ninja made one wrong turn, they'd be buried in their mistake, forever.

But Kai didn't plan on smiling like those dolls the whole way down. He wouldn't go out without a fight.

Jay and Zane changed into their Ninja outfits with different opinions of their natural black kimonos that matched Kai's. Zane had nary a negativity to complain about it, whirling around the room and talking about how much fun it was to wear something that was professional. Jay, on the other hand, was adjusting to the large difference in the comfortability of pajamas into the wearability, bendability, and style of a ninja kimono. He kept playing with the sleeves with his gloves.

Wu and Damon came from Wu's shrine room or whatever it was where he hid away all his mystic secrets. In their arms, they carried three familiar weapons, the kind that Kai had missed—and also couldn't wait for his friends to touch. Damon passed him his sword with a fatherly tenderness that hadn't been there before. He didn't know what changed in Ignacia, but it seemed like something in Damon finally started to _accept _the best friend of his son rather than the weird way he'd treated him before, as though he was damaged goods that needed to be handled with care. Kai shook it off and twirled the sword in the air, hearing the rewarding _slice _that came with.

Zane clapped. "Bravo!" He said, and laughed.

"We must be on our best behavior," reminded Sensei Wu to his younger student. He passed Zane the large shurikens that Kai hadn't seen in _ages, _watching Zane awkwardly take them in without idea how to hold them. "This battle can either start the Great one, or it may lead us further into our destinies."

"All bets are off," Damon said.

Jay rubbed his hair, making a groaning noise as Wu passed him the nunchaku that he grew skilled in using. Somehow, some part of Jay kicked in, and he held them the way that he would've with all the memory erased from his mind. Kai smiled. "You got this?" Kai asked, nodding to the nunchucks. Jay grinned crazily at him.

"Holding these has _sparked _a little of memory in me," he admitted. "I'd really hate to _shock _my fanbase by failing to show those Shadow Dancer ninnies how awesome I am!"

Kai grinned. He missed that old spiral of goofy jokes that only sometimes made sense in Jay's head. Kai high-fived his friend while, again, Zane clapped ridiculously nearby, making Kai turn his head and notice that Wu was suddenly holding his staff in his hands. Jay frowned. "Where did _that _come from?" He asked, pointing.

Wu looked down at his hands as though he hadn't noticed it. He flubbered for words. "Continuity error," he finally blamed, looking to his brother for a type of agreement. Damon frowned approvingly and shrugged up his shoulders, nodding in understanding.

Jay rubbed his forehead, uncertainly squinching his lips and raising the left half of his face, cheeks and brow simultaneously flinching. "If you say so."

Rikku appeared. In his hands, he held nothing, but Kai knew he was hiding a weapon somewhere over his body. "There's someone at the gate," he said, and a second later, there was a loud beep that came from a speaker somewhere.

"There is a mailman at the gate," said a voice. "He looks like he's been standing there a while."

"Mail!" Zane clapped. Jay whirled on him.

"Will you _stop _that? You're like a flippin' audience in the background of _Judge Alex." _He shook his head and turned away. "Let's grab that mail and high-tail it outta here! Cole and the others need us!"

Wu started down the hallway, Damon walking beside him. Jay and Kai exchanged a glance before running ahead, leaving Zane in the dust, as he ran behind them and swerved ahead of the elders. "Let us blow this popsicle stand!" he cried, and Kai grinned into the ninja hood he yanked over his face.

Kai passed the Samurai exosuit, ready for the fight just as well as they were. At its feet was someone very familiar to his eye: Yuki. The robot trained in medicine was busy holding a small tote in his hands, and as the boys passed, he said softly—without raising his voice; lord forbid he raise it!—in a sort of whisper, "Hold on, hero boys. There is something for you."

Kai, Jay, and Zane skidded to stops, tumbling over one another and falling onto the courtyard rock. They groaned in pain, reminiscing their new bruises, and tried to untangle the mess of their legs from one another. Yuki quietly shuffled over to them in a long off-grey robe, and gently knelt at their sides. His movements were a little too slow for Kai's impatience to handle. The drawn-out rearing back of the flap of the tote made Kai regretfully ask him to hurry. Yuki smiled and recovered three small vials from the sack. "These are just in case," he said, passing one to each of the three. Jay examined the clear-founded liquid inside of the pinky-sized bottle with a scrunched nose.

"Whazzat?" Zane asked. He toyed with the rubber stopper on his.

Kai held it up to the light, watching a rainbow almost appear in the vial. Yuki's soft voice returned. "It is just in case something dangerous or fatal may happen to you," he said. "I have been up since dawn making these."

"What does it do?" Jay asked.

"If you die or become seriously injured, this will help you heal faster or, in the case of death, come back to life."

"Um…"

"I do not have faith that you will meet doom, however." Yuki stood to his feet, the long silk robe dancing around his sandals. "I know you will survive, and hopefully the magic won't be needed."

The others murmured a thank you. Zane looked up at Yuki's girlish face, and asked, "Didn't Danielle make one of these for Damon?" He nodded to the elder man, appearing out the front door with Wu. Kai noted that all three of them were still tangled in one another.

Yuki shook his head. "That was me. I created it and gave it to her, just in case she would need to give it to someone else," he told Zane. Kai was surprised. "Danielle's remedies are not very…trustworthy."

"What does that mean?" Kai asked, but Yuki shook his head, looking like he'd said too much. His worried face crinkled at the brow.

"You have a mission to get to. Farewell, heroes." Without any other word, Yuki turned on the heel of his wooden sandal and walked towards the house, long ponytail swaying at his back. The Ninja stared after him, then at their vials, wondering what he meant by "Danielle's remedies are not very trustworthy." Being a healer, Yuki had to know a lot about the same things Dani did; but did he know something that the Ninja didn't? Kai had a weird feeling. Where _was _Dani, anyway? He hadn't seen her since yesterday morning.

Jay watched Zane remove the stopper and sniff the liquid. He announced there was no smell. "He's weird," Jay finally expressed, staring at the house door Yuki had quietly closed.

"What is 'weird?'" asked Sensei Wu on his way towards the door. He didn't stop to help the Ninja disentangle themselves, nor pass them a look of sympathy, empathy, or acknowledgement whatsoever. "Someone who is different, or someone who is different than _you?"_

Jay jumped to his feet the second he was free. "You see him. He looks like a chick. And he also attacked Zane."

"Even the best of us have skeletons in the closet," Wu told him. He moved towards the gate and pressed a button, panelized beside the large doors; there was a noise as the wide experts started to obliviate the closure. Not daring waste more time, Kai plucked off the rubber stopper, murmured a "bottom's up," and tipped back his head to let the tasteless liquid glide down his throat. Kai chucked aside the vial and ran for the door, not waiting for the others to follow his lead.

The mailman was not the mailman. He was a younger man, with dark brown hair and a worried, nervous smile. He had a wad of envelopes in his shaking hand that started to move for the outstretched clamp of Wu's, but Kai yelled, "SENSEI!" before he could grab them. The fire-bound boy dove for the faker. He knocked down the man with a cry and pinned him, straddling his hips, to the peak of a million steps. He bared his teeth. "_You're _not the mailman!" he snarled.

The man looked terrified. "I-I-I am, I-I j-just trad-ded routes w-with George b-bec-cause he s-says t-trouble only f-follows you, a-and he didn't want-t to d-deliver y-o-ou m-mail anymore." The man was sweating all over his face. "P-please don't hurt m-me…" He begged.

Kai narrowed his eyes, but at the orders of Wu, jumped off of the mail deliverer, mouth curled in a half frown. "I've got my eye on you," he said, and bent down to grab the mail the man had flailingly dropped on the ground when Kai tackled him. He heard Jay laughing behind him.

"Seems like someone's a little suspicious!" He cackled. "Way to _bowl _over the competition!"

"I'm not competing with him," he grumbled, and stood up. The mailman was shrunken into a standing huddle, seeming like he wanted to curl up inside himself and pee until he'd used up all the fluid in his body. He shook so bad he was about to cry. Kai rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm sorry, alright? I was just being careful."

"A-at least I get a sliver of G-George's payroll—"

The mailman cried out as, surprisingly and to Kai's horror, the man was lifted off his feet from the ground about six inches by something Kai didn't see. His face was a grimace of pain. _I knew it, _it seemed to be saying, and a second later, the mailman was dropped onto the ground, crashing onto the rock with blood pouring out his back. Kai's mouth shaped a wide _O. _

Standing in the place where the mailman had been was a boy, no older than fourteen, with dark brown hair swept to the side and roughed into jagged points, wearing a very familiar metal crown suit. The headdress of the all-too-memorable—yet this time different than his own had been— Prince of Darkness attire jutted out in flame-like peaks over the boy's head, and dark green eyes—nothing close to the neon green color of evil—stared into Kai's. The gloved hand he held outstretched before him held a pulsing, red kidney-shaped object, still trying to work blood out of itself until it realized that it was beginning to die. His leather glove was covered in blood, coating the orange color in real red. The boy's young face smirked as he tossed aside the heart of the mailman like it was nothing, not the life force of an innocent human being. Kai's lips couldn't form words. That guy had _stuck his own hand _through the mailman's back, grabbed his heart, and ripped it out. Oh, lord. He wasn't human, was he?

The boy grinned, holding out his hands in a show. His long, red-orange-yellow cape drug across the ground as he took a couple of steps forward to come only a foot from the fire ninja, yet as much as Kai wanted to attack, he found it hard to move his feet. Sensei made a noise in his throat from behind him—not an _attack _noise, but a _disapproving _noise. "Noel," whispered Wu.

_Noel. _As in, Kai's _brother _Noel. He'd never heard much about him, but he'd never intended to MEET him, either; Kai fell into a comatose shock of staring like a blank idiot into the deep eyes of his relative, the only relative he'd ever met of his real family outside of the father that had returned him to life from the Elemental Realm. Noel didn't break eye contact with him. His smirk was a lot like Kai's as it half-lifted over his lips. "Hel_lo_, brother," said Noel Smith, and his eyes shadowed over his spreading evil grin.

* * *

**The Bizarro are opening up BRAND NEW wormholes in four other places! Sea of Sand, Ninjago City, Birchwood Forest, and the Fireman's Circle! Is there any significance to these places, or are they just random in choosing their points to the star shaped pattern?**

**Kaos is inside of the tombs where the Shadow Key is! OMG!**

**Jay and Nya cuteness! So Nya ISN'T with Cole! *le gasp* JAYA! Or is it Jya? *shrugs***

**Yuki lets it slip that there isn't everything entirely trustable about Danielle. Is this true?! Purdy much :3**

**And, the epic portion: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLL LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL. **

**As you can tell, I love Noel. He is my favorite. Him, and Rikku. And Yuki. But mostly Noel. And Rikku. And Yuki. :P**

**Anyways. GO HAVE AN AWESOMEY DAY/NIGHT!**

**Love, Kairi ~~ **


	64. Chapter 64

**Hey. :) So, this chapter is...well, crucial. Enjoy. :)**

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Of Yin and Yang

**CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR: ****  
**Welcome Back

The room was dark. Kaos could see nothing. If this is what the moments leading up to his death were supposed to summon, then death would come quite peacefully, actually. His gut told him that this room was it, but he was certain that, like every temple in action movies, there was a large chance that his hunch was a failure and his ass would get destroyed under the demolition of rocks by a supernatural curse. The curse of the tomb, bestowed by the ancient witch—he didn't know if it was Katherine or Quetziya that made this place so ridden by a spell—would kill him if he'd picked the door that didn't hold the Key, wrapped in satin, only unlocked when he spoke the words of ancient Latin that Danielle had prevised for him. He kept his hands clenched around the torch in his hands.

Was this the right tomb, or was he a dead man already?

He moved the torch through the darkness, but it never lit up anything. It was just a glob of fire that hung in the middle of the distance, like the drawing of flame on a picture without the reflections of the heat on other objects. It was random, and unbothering to the space around him.

Maybe the space was doom.

Kaos didn't know what to think. He looked back at the open door, craving answer from something, but the door was gone. He was wrapped in darkness, and since the door closed without letting him _know _it was closing by a noise, he had many reasons to believe he was dead already. He had died, and he'd failed.

He felt angry. After everything he'd done, this is what it came to? The end? His LOSS? Being misled by a GUESS that he'd picked the right door?

What a dumb way to die. Kaos clenched his fist around the fire and threw the torch into the nothing—but that "nothing" turned out to be solid when he heard the clank of the wood against a stone wall, watching the fire fall in its own separate world onto empty black space and sit there. It didn't catch onto anything, didn't die. Just simply existed without existing fully.

He had an idea. _Whisper the words of ancient Latin… _

"_Indica mihi umbra mea clavis__, ubi abscondas?" _growled Kaos. Latin was a formative, complicated language, and certain words could translate into things they really weren't, if one didn't take context carefully. What Kaos _really _said was "Tell me, key to my shadow, where hide it?" Some might mistake it for being a simpler version of that sentence, but that was only because of dimwittedness in the translating system.

The room lit up.

Torches scattered the walls, igniting the real image of what was inside this tomb, and Kaos _knew _that hit tiny little 'hunch' was right. His ancestors weren't as smart as they thought they were; the number seven was a large part of the prophecies of the fate of Ninjago, and to say that he didn't see this one coming would be a dead lie. The torches overshadowed his grin of superior inclination. He'd SUCCEEDED.

Before him, in the firelit tomb, there was a long golden table, covered in fine red drapes and jewels. It was splendid, but the real prize was in the middle, wrapped in a neat, fine golden stain. Kaos could only see the outline of the fine body of what would ultimately be the key to his power over Ninjago. He was so close to _winning _that he could _taste _it!

Kaos reached out a hand towards the Shadow Key's covering. _I have won, _he thought, the material coming into his hands. _I. Have. WON!_

He ripped open the satin and stared at his prize below.

…

"NinjaaaaaGOOOOO!" Lloyd pushed more and more Shadow Dancers closer to the edge, but Cole could tell that it was becoming hard to keep them all in one spot. In the small cockpit of the wrecking ball's controller, he stared at all the buttons, levers, and wheels that would actually _start _this thing. There was NO WAY he'd be able to figure out just exactly what button would do much more than the key he'd twisted could, and even at that point, Cole felt like vomiting. He pulled one lever, glancing down at the action below, and seeing some metal thing on the pulley holding the ball up twitch. Okay, _that _did nothing for him. Cole pushed another button.

The wrecking ball, thankfully all the way to the left and far from the fight, dropped to the ground and created a tremor in the ground. The tar caved in and left a huge splintered circle of cement pieces sticking up from the ground. Cole winced. Okay, not _that _button; he needed it up a little further, just so he could knock those Shadow Dancers into the Void—the Void that Seiko was trying to open. She seemed to be struggling. He knew that it was going to be hard for her to do this, and she'd probably pass out afterwards like last time—but she _had _to. It was the only way to get these monsters completely out of his way and stop them from digging out the city.

Cole pushed a small joystick next to the button he'd pushed, and was successful in finding that it was lifting the wrecking ball off the ground and into the air. BUT he lifted it a LITTLE TOO MUCH. "Crap!" Cole dropped it again, and the ball crushed the ground once more. How was he going to move it, anyway? The other joystick? The lever? Oh, man…

Cole squared his shoulders. Being a leader didn't mean everything would always be easy. He stared at the buttons for a moment longer… Yes, it definitely WASN'T easy, but he needed to act fast. He lifted the ball to the height he thought would work and started for the next door lever—C'mon, Seiko, _open the damn Void!_ To Cole's happiness, the rope holding onto the wrecking ball started to move. Accomplishment! Well, maybe it _was _the wrong direction, but you get the idea.

Cole jerked it the opposite way. C'mon, Seiko, open the frickin' Void, he thought. He stopped moving the machine when he noticed that there were too many outside of the inner circle to let this plan continue. He hated to admit it, but this was so _hard _with two clueless Shinobi and one Green Ninja. If only the others were here…

…

"YAAAAHOOOOOOO!" Jay pulled up on the motorcycle handles at the last second, pulling them upwards so greatly that he happened to become airborne. It was scary, hurdling over an improvised wall of cars that were supposed to block out ninja but failed, although he had to admit he was enjoying this. He got his own motorcycle to drive on the way here, and dang, it was awesome. On the backseat, Zane held on tightly to Jay's shoulders.

It hadn't taken them very long to get here on these motorcycles. Everyone had taken one from the garage in the monastery, although somewhere along the way, Wu and Damon's bike made a detour or something that made Kai and that other dude fade away, too. He probably shoulda been a little concerned as to where his buddies were off to.

Jay flew through on his floating bike, watching everyone underneath him stare at the flying motorbike in awe. It felt good to have people _looking up _to him_! _HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Aw man, that was a good one. Jay patted himself on the back. (Mentally. He would die if he did it while flying.)

The bike's tires landed with the cracked pavement, and he broke the brakes pulling on them so hard. Zane jumped off the back of his bike da second it landed and pulled out his shurikens, and though neither of them were exactly brainiacs on how to fight, it somehow seemed natural to hold onto their preferred weapon of choice. With Jay's blood pumping so quick, he actually started to THINK of ways he could swing his nunchucks to take out enemies faster, and enjoyed the thrill of jumping off the bike and whipping out those suckers. He saw another guy in a ninja suit looking at him with huge blue eyes, automatically letting him know he was looking at Lloyd. The Green Ninja fended off a Dancer.

"We've come to save the day!" Jay said, puffing out his chest. He held onto one nunchuck and started swinging the other in a wide circle.

Lloyd looked skeptical. "Who sent you out here? You can't even fight."

Zane threw a shuriken. The pointed edges landed EXACTLY inside of one of the creepy crawlies' chest, making it fall over dead 'cuz it was impossible not to die when you just got owned by a nindroid. Er. Um. Jay felt funny. A nindroid? What was that, again? He didn't even know where that thought came from, actually, which was even dumber than these creatures, since nobody thought thoughts they didn't think about. That was a ridiculous excuse.

Oh, golly. 'Thought' was like "exist"! NO MORE REPEATING THE PAST!

Zane walked over to the chest who had his shuriken, prying it out of the body with his boot on the stomach and his hand around the weapon, yanking it out with a nice unsheathe sound. "This is mine," he informed the body, like it cared.

Jay waggled his eyebrows at Lloyd. "'Can't fight'? You're about to eat your words! Watch _this!"_

Jay swirled his nunchucks in the air. "HOOYAH!" He cried, and kicked a nearby dancer square in the stomach. His enemy crashed onto the earth under his feet. His nunchucks moved quick, like lightning gliding around his body. Jay spun them into the faces of his opposers—the ones that weren't in his friend list—with side comments. "Have a nice _trip!" _"Aw, sorry, I didn't see your tiny little almost nonexistent body there!" "Hey face, meet NUNCHUCK! HYAH!"

He found himself moving a little at Lloyd's side. Lloyd ducked as Jay moved, water-like, over him, kicking out several faces at once. He landed on his feet on the other side of the guy. "Teamwork!" he pumped his fist, and then rammed it into something's face. Lloyd's mask twitched when he smiled.

Jay found it a lot more…easy to fight and learn with his nunchucks in hand. It was weird. He seemed to move better, fight WAY better, think faster, and work harder than he ever would've in the monastery's "training room." Out here, he was more focused on what was in front of him. The nunchucks, especially, were twelve-million times more helpful than your average fist. He couldn't explain it. There was something about holding them that made him feel right, made him feel more powerful to do things that needed to be done, and to show the world who exactly Jay Walker was. He felt more of himself, and more of a ninja, and it felt just as good as finding out that Nya wasn't into Cole anymore. The feeling of belonging and oneness that those nunchucks gave him was like strapping the missing stitch to his soul back onto himself. Jay gladly accepted them as part of him.

His quick body zipped past Zane and knocked down more enemies. _I wonder when Kai and the other dudes are gonna get here? _They'd been right behind Zane and Jay, but maybe Jay drove a little too fast for them, since after a while he couldn't see 'em anymore.

"Keep the Shadow Dancers in a circle!" Lloyd shouted, "So Cole can knock them into the Void!"

Jay stopped fighting, noticing the growing portal on the side of the building for the first time. He saw that one girl that he, uh, couldn't remember the name of. "Huh. I never saw that."

"Eyes open then , brother!" Zane said from somewhere encircling him, the shurikens being thrown through the air and hitting back the black cloaks rushing athim with cries. Jay also firstly noticed that they WERE smacking these numbskulls into a circle, which he never would've seen before if nobody mentioned it to him. The bothersome Shadow Stalker things were contained to this design by three cloaked Ninjas and a couple of strangers that Jay didn't know, a portrait of the perfect getaway plan since there were so many gaps in the system, but these guys were as close to being as smart as Einstein if Jay was as close to being Zane. Well, yeah, okay, that was a weird analogy, but you get what he meant. Jay twirled his nunchucks to a winners perfect circle and pointed his valor at their puniness. A stalker that happened to be in front of him stopped dead.

"Prepare to be destroyed by my—"

The witty quip didn't catch on. A second before his nunchucks could hit the sucker, something metal and shiny clipped the air, catching the shadow to the shoulder and making it squeal all the way to the ground, landing in a thump. Jay's open mouth sucked in air that went straight to his brain. A tall glinted sword oppressed the witty quip that he was going to RIGHTFULLY SAY as well as keeping the enemy pinned. Jay whirled.

It was Kai, standing behind him with a mischievous grin. "You just got Kai'd!" He did a little dance, and Jay rolled his eyes, but kept whirling those helpful nunchucks of his, afraid that if he stopped he'd get jumped. He didnt know when his friend got here, but was extremely glad that he did. Kai loped over to the squealing piggy-sounding stalker and yanked out the embedded sword from its full healing grasp. The fire ninja smiled at his friend. "You're welcome," he added.

Then Kai flipped backwards into the fight.

"HOOYAH! Ha-HA!" Jay punched down another Stalkish Fish dude. the enemies started to gather in front of him, their cluster holding power tools as weapons. Apparently they now understood the one-way concept of fighting. "Let's DO THIS! Hey, wait a second." Jay looked at his new competition, and envisioned a spinning dummy hanging over the heads of the dancers. "It's like the training course!" Jay jumped into the air, ready to knock down the dummies, when he felt something inside of him guiding him in a different direction. Jay's foot swerved to kick down the dummy mid-jump (actually a real life short-nosed bumpkins that was staring at him in shock,) landing a blow to the face, but instead of stepping down on the ground again, something inside of Jay's heart coiled and snapped. It released a jolt through his body, almost like when you hit your funny bone and a shock went up your fingers before they started to tingle, but something much more exotic than that. It came from his heart, and sparked down into his legs, through his arms, and up the spinal track into the back of his head, where a supernova of sparks showered behind his eyelids. Jay felt his body begin to spin around in tight, elastic circles that normally would've made him dizzy. This time, though, it was different than spinning around 5 times and being asked to race your dizzy friend to the finish line.

There was a tornado of blue that filled him, holding him as the butter in the bread. Jay spun around and with this new power, watching his enemies cry out and duck for cover at the tail of the whirl, had lightning crack around his body. It thundered every time he hit someone.

Without thinking, Jay cried out, "NinjaaaaGOOOOOOOO!"

The explosions in his brain turned into those fireworks that spawned off of one another, each separate fire piece spawning three more explosives. He felt his whole body shake, like some mind-gasm, and the taut muscles in his stomach harden to solidity. Jay closed his eyes.

And then, just like that, no warning—Jay remembered EVERYTHING.

All the battles, the jokes, the Late nights on the Bounty talking to Zane, Kai, and Cole. The moments of sorrow, the gift of triumph, the feeling of belonging. The times he spend building things and drawing blueprints, fixing sparring bots, working on the Bounty to make it fly. The chores he had to do for Sensei when they failed, the brotherly competitions for lazy afternoons spent playing video games, the times he gagged out his insides when Cole made dinner and went to bed starving. Hanging out with his nindroid friend and trying to understand him but finding the large vocabulary brain-blowing, arguing with Cole because their personalities clashed, having it easier to be best friends with Kai. Falling in love with Nya more every day, the stolen kisses behind Kai's back, their first night together. Training to become better, faster, and stronger by every time they had one-on-one fights with Wu watching closely. Fixing the things they broke, inventing things they hadn't, and becoming more a part of a family than he's ever been before. Taking time to patch up something in Zane's panel for a monthly tune-up. Fighting the Skullkin, defeating Pythor and his QuickDraw plan of the Fangblades, plus getting rid of the stone armymen that JUST WOULDN'T DIE. Worrying about Nya when she was captured by Garmadon, never letting her out of his sights after they got her back. Arguing with Kai about letting them Share a room until he finally gave in. Falling asleep with her wrapped in his arms. Planning their life together. Watching Lloyd awkwardly grow into his new body, laughing his ass off when Kai gave him 'the Talk' in the boys' bedroom, knowing that the poor inner ten-year-old was scarred for the rest of his life. Giving himself the satisfaction of buying Lloyd a how-to sex book just for kicks, and laughing until his sides hurt when Lloyd screamed and dropped the book like it was a dead rat, then running away with a red face. He'd felt awful afterwords when he found the kid crying in his bed, and offered for Zane to make him a cake. Jay Buying a handheld dictionary so he could look up the words Zane said. Helping out Ninjago when the Overlord destroyed the city, and glad when everything was back to normal.

Jay fell out of the Spinjitzu and onto a heap on the ground. It hurt to fall, but he was struck dumb.

He was himself again.

A moment later, his name was shouted. He saw Kai standing over him, offering out a helping hand. Jay grabbed it, glad for the help.

"You okay?" Kai asked.

"Kai..." Jay's voice was only a whisper. "I remember."

* * *

**He remembers! *cries* JAYYY!**

**Please, go have an AWESOMEY day/night!**

~Kairi


	65. Chapter 65

****NOTE: You'll notice a couple characters missing from this chappie. That's supposed to happen.**

*****OTHER NOTE: OMG you guys. **300 reviews.** Thank you all **soooo much for being with O.Y.A.Y and giving me your feedback-** I love you all. NfaN wouldn't be here without any of you. *tears up***

*******ANOTHER NOTE!: **There's also a** deviation **on my** DA profile about NfaN Season 2. **It has the** titles on it, **so I'd appreciate if you went and checked it out sometime, if you're interested! Thanks, guys! I love you all!

Enjoy. :3

* * *

**CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE:  
**Shadow Key...or Not to Shadow Key

Kaos looked at the Golden staff, the elegant Coils of material at the top and end of either side, buched together into small disc-shapes at the sides.A diamond at the end was made out of gold and obviously a prosthetic piece, but the top end was empty. Four tall, pointed slivers of gold were there, supposed to cage in a red Gem that would be the most valuable part of this hell-hideous and clunky staff, but the opening between them where the large Gem SHOULD'VE been was...EMPTY!

The most PRECIOUS PIECE of the Shadow Key was MISSING.

Kaos stared hard at the thing that would've led him to victory. The Gem had to be here somewhere! He lifted the staff and moved around the satin covering, wondering that it had fallen out, but the only gems around were the cheap ones sitting on the coffin, jus for show and not importance. They were too small to fit, anyhow. Rampaged, Kaos gave a cry—he'd been LIED to! Tricked! There was never anything in the writ that said the two pieces would be SEPERATED—his ancestors had kept that from all of the Dancers. The Shadow Key was INCOMPLETE—it was WORTHLESS! He didn't Know how to process such trickery. EVERY THING HE'D GONE THROUGH - and this is what it came to?!

Kaos screamed and grabbed the side of the sarcophagus, and with inhuman strength he grabbed it and flipped it over. There was a loud crash as all the jewels and thick Shadow staff - clearly not the KEY! - crashed to the stone, but the louder noise came from the golden sarcophagus slamming against the wall. The sound of shattering glass came from the fake, airblown jewels and the clank of metal hitting the rock made his ears hurt. There was no Gem here. Either someone had stolen it...

Or the tale of the Shadow Key being the one thing able to let the Gates come to life was all a fake.

Kaos shouted again, and flipped over the sarcophagus one more time. He heard his name being called from the outside of this wretched tomb. "Are you dead?!" shouted Kayus.

Kaos grit his teeth. He grabbed one of the formed jewels and threw it to the wall, shattering it into fragments of imagination. "YES I'm still alive," snapped the leader through his teeth. Though he'd much rather be dead. The minute he stepped out of here without the Key, he'd look like a fool to the whole Shadow Dancer race, and the humiliation was worse than death. He kicked the sarcophagus. "The damned Key isnt here!"

"What do you MEAN, it isnt there? Where is it?"

"If I KNEW that don't you think I would be somewhere ELSE?" Kaos grabbed the golden satin slice and flapped it in the air angrily, hitting it hard to the wall. The slapping made a noise much like the description, but that wasn't ALL Kaos heard.

The sound of paper fluttering in the air made him pause. He looked to see a time-downed wrinkled slip of paper falling from the drape, gently falling like a feather and boating backwards and forwards through the air until it touched the ground. Kaos tossed aside the satin and bent to grab the paper.

There were two lines scribbled across it in a language he didn't understand, but recognized.

"MISAKO!" He shouted. Bending to grab the Shadow staff, Kaos stomped out of the tomb, leaving behind the ravaged room in his wake for the next fool who found it. He walked out the main door and saw Kayus and Fang tightening their hold on Misako. Her hair was wild and mussed, beneath her glasses an angry fire—Kaos could care less what she felt like. He waved the paper in her face and shoved it at her impatiently. "Read that," he ordered, and Misako shook her head.

"No."

"Maybe I didn't make myself CLEAR enough when I told you I'm not beyond going up there and slaughtering your husband and your son with my bare hands," he hissed. Misakos eyes flashed. "Read the damn paper or so help me Elathan I will make you watch me slit their throats."

Misako sighed. He held out the paper to her, and Misako only got to look at it—he trusted her none to let her go—to read. She squinted, lips thin. "If it is..." Misako paused, reading. "...the Shadow Key you want to harness," she paused again, "you must find the Heart of Darkness."

"FUCKING RIDDLES!" Kaos crumpled the paper and threw it. His ancestors sent him on ONE wild goose chase, and just when he thought that finally the hard part was over, he had the rug pulled from under his shoes. He had to now figure out what the hell the Heart of Darkness was, WHERE it was—so much for one thing.

The Gem had something to do with the Heart of Darkness. Was the Gem the same thing as the Heart of Darkness, or would he find another riddlesome note to lead him to the Gem?

...

The Void was open, and Cole was getting a hang of using the controls of the wrecking ball.

He didn't know how long the Void would BE open, but he was glad to have his team here. He'd seen Jay and Zane appear minutes before Kai did, and that made him know they has his back. With the extra help, keeping the Dancers in a circle was becoming easy. His team rounded the dancers like lions capturing prey, lashing out with their weapons when there was someone stupid enough to get out of line, bringing them further and further up the food chain. These so-called 'demons' were definitely a lot less environmentally adapted if they were letting a bunch of seriously amazing Ninja play Security Guard. Cole was proud of the others, and shouted out the hole where the door was supposed to be, "Get ready!"

"Aye, aye, Cap'n!" yelled Jay back. Somehow, he'd unlocked the key to Spinjitzu - and quickly, might Cole add. He started moving the wrecking ball back and forth to gain momentum. He hardly ever paid attention in science class back in high school to know what exactly the formula for _momentum _was, but just about any idiot would know that he needed to build up _some_thing before he started for his attack on the black cluster. The Void wasn't going to hold up forever, so he had to do this quickly, or they just might lose their chance to ditch the battle and see what was actually happening around here. They were digging for Kaos and the sake of finding that Shadow Key, but where was the head of this dig?

The wrecking ball was ready. Cole swung it back one last time. _"GOOOO_!" He yelled out the door. Jay ducked out of the way when the giant ball of (lead, was it?) came hurdling towards him. Kai, Zane, and Lloyd all spun out of distance. The horde of Shadow Dancers screamed. They knew what was coming next.

Hitting them directly, the Shadow Dancers were pushed by a tonned force into an avian rocket, flying through the air with very high-pitched screams. Cole thought for a second that maybe he'd overshot it—until he saw the first of the hundred fly into the circle of Void. The wrecking ball inclined to turn a different direction—a circle pattern—when it discontinued the contact it had with the collection of assailants. It moved sideways, making Kai have to spin quickly out of the way before it hit him; afraid that the wrecking ball would double back for a pendulum second taste, Cole pressed the button that made the whole thing drop to the ground. The burden made another tremor abrade the landscape.

The last of the Shadow Dancers disappeared into the Void's endless night. "Close it!" Cole yelled. Like the crack of a whip, Seiko brought it crashing down on itself. The hole disappeared without delay, and his sister fell to her hands and knees. Cole made sure to switch off the ignition before jumping out of the massive destructor.

His friends were already high-fiving and rejoicing their triumph. Jay whacked his hand to Kai's, the fire ninja then turning to Lloyd and wrapping him in a hug. As he came up to his crew, Cole pretended he didn't see and turned his eyes to Zane, who was clapping. The clueless ice ninja jumped into Cole's arms. "Well done!" he applauded, pulling away. Cole was taken aback by the sudden affection, and brushed off his olive-toned cheek.

Jay held out a fist, laughing happily. "AWESOME PLAN, bro!" he said. "You _owned _those Shadow Stalkers!"

"Dancers," Kai corrected.

Jay threw his hands up, not irritated. "Does it matter? We beat them!" Jay pumped his fist into the air. "They're goners!"

Cole glanced up, happening to see his sister struggling to her feet. Her nose was bleeding. Cole took his time detaching the crowd from his side to walk towards her, holding out a hand as if he was coming up on an untamed animal, which earned him a shakily pointed look from his sister. She used the back of her hand to wipe the heavy stream of blood from her lip. "You're welcome," she said flatly.

"You did great," he told her delicately. He wanted to put a hand to her shoulder, but Seiko never would've let him.

Seiko rolled her eyes. Her slightly-slumped posture was enervated, and the half-lid effete made her rethink her footing. The rindle of blood drizzling from her nostril didn't look like it could have been stopped. "I don't need your praise," she said.

Cole knew that their relationship was damaged seriously. He knew he still didn't trust her one-hundred-percent yet. How could he, after the things she'd done in the past? Her mind was not everything it should've been, and therefore it was a danger, but maybe Cole could help a little. As much as he was able, anyway. He let his hand fall to his side, and their stare was awkward until the feet of the others came up behind them.

"You rocked that!" Lloyd opinionated, and Seiko rolled her eyes at him, too.

"Suck up," she claimed. "You're just telling me that because you know I can kick your butt."

Jay's mouth went tiny, that expression he had when he was basically just standing still with nothing to react to. He lifted his hand and scratched the place underneath his nose. "You got a little somethin'," he remarked. Seiko ignored him.

Zane turned to Kai, holding out his hands with the shurikens in them. Kai stared at them. "Where did Damon and Wu go?" He asked. "With that boy—your brother, Noel?"

Kai opened his mouth to probably answer. Cole didn't get to hear much of that, since Seiko and Lloyd both snapped their heads in Kai's direction. Lloyd had a grooved brow, his looks darkening in a downward tilted chin. He looked at Kai from under his lashes. Seiko's nostrils flared, her eyebrows knitting, and her lips slightly moving into a frown. Her eyes were saying _Please don't be implying what I think you're implying! "_Noel?" Lloyd repeated, sounding a little upset.

Kai blinked. He looked ashamed. Cole wasn't sure exactly who Noel was—the name was familiar, but then again, that couldn't mean anything. "Sensei apparently invited him to come from the Underworld to help us," he said. "He said that Noel doesn't approve of the Shadow Dancers, and to have him on our side would give us an immediate edge." Lloyd's face whitened.

"WHAT?" Seiko's voice raised. Chagrin on her face made her jump forward and grab Kai by the front of his shirt, pulling him down to her height. Kai looked a little afraid. She got in his face, pretty much spitting all over him. "You mean the dude who KILLED ME? You better just be lying to me, Scuba," she bellowed. "Or you're about to go diving real quick."

"He's not lying," said Zane gaily.

Seiko's nose twisted, and she shook Kai forcefully. The Ninja was released a second later so he could drag a hand over the wrinkled front of his kimono, mouth half-frowning. She pointed at him. "You are SOOOOO dead," she said.

"I didn't _do _anything!"

"Life doesn't have to be fair!"

"Oh, no, please don't fight..."

"Shaddap, Twinkies!"

...

Shoving aside Kayus and Fang, Kaos grabbed Misako by her hair. His frustration with his ancestors was soaring with their Dr. Seuss treasure hunt trickery. The woman gave a grunt. But he wasn't in the mood to talk to her, just use brute force to make her do what he wanted. He started pulling her by the dry matted locks towards the staircase that led them out of the hole those zany henchmen of his had dug. Misako sung out with noise of hurt that he ignored the notes to, the staircase being taken by his child-like angry stomping. His metal mask hid his face from the sunlight at the ground above, and their stakeout was hidden behind the tall tower of two excavators, so the Ninja he KNEW were here would never see him coming. He held Misako by the hair, dragging her in a bent walking position between the space held coagulate to the excavators and into the viewpoint of the Ninja. She gave a grunt that made them turn from a huddle far from him.

Lloyd Garmadon's eyes grew huge. "Mom!" He cried.

"Take the brat," Kaos growled, and with inhuman force threw Misako on the ground. The woman tumbled and rolled over the cement. Lloyd pushed past his friends to run for his mother, fall to his knees beside her, and pull her into his arms. They held fast to each other's bodies with whispered words of reunition, of being within two distances of each other for the first time in less than twenty-four hours, yet this was growing quite tiring to Kaos. _Heart of Darkness _repeated over and over in his mind. What the hell WAS that?

The Ninja ran forward to Lloyd's side, practically SHIELDING him from Kaos. The Shadow Dancer noticed that their lovely little Daijiro and Maru were missing (as according to plan) and tightened his hold on the shadow staff in his hands. The Ninja pulled up their hoods and took on thwarting positions with their weapons properly set in their hands, a scythe, shurikens, nunchucks, and sword showing his own image looking back at him in the metal. His eyes were greedy and blue underneath the metal mask.

"Hand over the staff," said the one Kaos had seen as Cole. "And you just might get off easy in the county jail."

Kaos snorted. "Do you honestly think putting me in a cell would stop me?" He looked down at the worthless staff and its stupid alphacode issue with coming incomplete when he ORDERED the full package.

Kai swung his sword. Trying to intimidate Kaos, he supposed, but it didn't work. "No," Kai said, "but it would keep you out of our hair long enough for us to figure out what to do with you."

"We've only known you for three days and you're already annoying," said Jay. His nunchucks swiveled.

"Boo hoo." Kaos squeezed the staff. That was when he noticed a familiar shape among the four Ninja guarding Lloyd, lifting his mother up to her feet, while the person pretended to be part of the group. Seiko Mitsuhide, the Yin, the powerful pawn that could tip the balance easily with the power that Kaos needed the most—she moved among the living as though she was actually there. Pathetic. She came up to the side of Zane, holding a hammer in her hands. _That _was her weapon? How laughable!

With that power, Kaos would be unstoppable. Nothing could get in his way, with his mind control—that he was too weak to use now, weak from things that happened earlier today—and her Void. He could make everything go away and entertain himself tricking people into his traps for hours. The world would be HIS. To get this fantasy existent, he planned on isolating her until she was easy enough to coax into his side of the fence, or if that failed, taking her by kidnapping. It worked with Misako when he'd had her husband shot and dignity ripped apart with lies of her dead friends, and the outcome of that was he'd gotten what he wanted. He needed to weaken Seiko using her own armor chinks, flaws, and impairments against her and turn that stone heart into one he could easily manipulate, once and for all.

Wait.

Kaos' mind flashed. _Stone heart...Heart of Darkness..._

_Turning her dark. Onto HIS side. _

It was a long shot, but Kaos's mask covered his inspiration. The Ninja came at him with their picayune Spinjitzu, as if that would stop someone as hell-bent and crabbed and hopeful as Kaos. He deflected each tornado—excluding the ice, which didn't go—by his own counterstep: He picked up a piece of a building nearby, a metal piece of the skeleton, and swung it upon each of their tornadoes. The Ninja flew backwards, all becoming, at some point, a part of the ground. Jay flew into a hole.

He looked at Misako, standing alongside Seiko, while their protectors endeavored to get up. Misako looked dirty and worn. Seiko's nose was unattractively spitting ketchup down her face.

Kaos looked at his staff, then at her. _If it is the Shadow Key you want to harness, you must find the Heart of Darkness._

Could it be? Was her heart—her CHOICE—the key?

Only one way to find out.

Kaos started moving for her, but at the second he let his guard down, something sharp and painful was thrown into his arm. His uproar with irascibility in cover of the mask's great hid sounded at the discovery that there was a knife in his arm. Kaos grabbed the hilt and yanked the blade out from the embed of his cape.

"Not so fast." Kaos turned his head to the speaker. The waltzing boy came in, wearing a garb that Kaos had only ever HEARD of; the headdress and firelike design in color and execution came from a abdominal yellow save-plate and a tight undersuit of orange and red, the pigment close to flame. Cuffs around either wrist of the dark-haired boy moving for him had pointed _teeth _jaggered to the black leather. A cape of flame drug on the ground behind the fifteen-year-old, but Kaos knew better.

He was intimidated. Yes, the unholy god-like antagonist was intimidated by the boy wearing the outfit of the Prince of Darkness. The boy smiled, although it was not friendly and more plastic than anything. "I'm afraid you can't hurt the poor dear," he said, gesturing to Seiko. Kaos never looked at her. "But, it was nice to see you try anyway."

Kaos twirled the knife. "You must be Noel," he said directly.

The boy half-toyed his pink lips and let his eyelids fall halfway over the green lookers peeping at Kaos. "So you AREN'T an idiot after all," he said. "Congrats. You've been staying in school, doing your reading. Good job, kudos, bar mitzvah and whatever." Noel waved his hand narcissistically. "Look. As cool as your ideals are, I can't let you open the Gates with that giant, er,stick." Noel waved his hands to deligate the curves of the staff. His hands, uncovered by gloves, began to turn a deep orange. No, not a different color; they were becoming _lava. _In the shape of his _hands. _Noel smirked. "Any last words?" he asked.

Kaos only smiled. No one saw it but the inside of the metal, so no one knew just what his next intentions were...

* * *

**Oooo, a battle between Kaos and Noel! **

**BURNING FAN QUESTION: Who will win? Kaos, or Noel? xD**

**Go have an AWESOME day/night!**

**(P.S- THANK YOU!)**


	66. Chapter 66

**EPIC. CHAPPIE. **

* * *

**CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX: **  
My Brother, the Devil

Kaos thought over his words leisurely, dragging out what little time before combat he had left to instead think of the best way to get Noel off his keister. Upper hand as Kaos may have had, Noel was the better creature here, since he was oblivious to any power that Kaos could ever use on him in the accordance that he was the ultimate demon, the Prince of Darkness, and couldn't be abused by Kaos's control. In the demonic food chain, Noel was at the very top, right underneath his father, who was dead. Kaos was barely anything on the food chain, really, almost at the very bottom because of his...upbringing. Shadow Dancers were only a tier above satyrs, and underneath satyrs was the condescending title of "Half-Breeds," a cluster of half-creatures that were lumped together crudely. That was where the food chain ended, and also the home to where Kaos was tucked into. Half-breeds were normally born with a special ability to make up for their lameass half-n-half, and also to help them survive longer than a few days after birth, since every other creature would rather kill them. Defense-mechanism powers, if you will. Kaos was born with the ability to take over minds, but only as long as he had enough life-force to fuel the power, which he was currently out of. The only peoples he couldn't control were the King and his sons. Unfortunately, it was almost like the jig was over; if he had he power to control minds right now and had used it on the Ninja, Noel wouldn't have seen what they were seeing.

Kaos was at a loss for power. All he could do now was run, use speed, and the objects around him as his weapons. Kaos twirled the knife that he'd had tossed at him through his fingers, showing off that he was certainly not a weak opponent, and it only fueled the lava that Noel's hands had become. The boy smirked cockily, holding arms out on either side of him, and Kaos watched as his eyes began to turn from dark, unevil green to a bright, pissed off orange. Kaos crouched his body into a defensive stance. "Quite the traitor to your word, aren't you?" He taunted. "What would Eloquim think?"

Noel's blink was the final shade of green that Kaos saw; a second after the irises were revealed, it was only a bright, glowing orange. The dark brown hair crowning his head began to pale into a fiery red. The veins underneath his skin became visible with the scorch-black color of coal, each normally invisible design suddenly creeping with sought under his olive skin. They dispatched, creeping quickly up his neck and into his face, the veins filling with black until every line Kaos could see was completely black, a spider web wrapped over his face. Noel's boots slightly lifted off the ground. Wind burst into motion, picking up and almost blowing over the recovering ninja as they came to their feet. Kaos caught Lloyd looking strangely at the Prince of Darkness, but time was not to overuse. Without breaking eye contact with Kaos, Noel jerked his chin to the right—Seiko's direction. "Get her out of here," he shouted to the others over the tough wind. Everyone stared at him. "Chop, chop, idiots! Waste makes haste or whatever the hell that motif was." his agitated tone was amusing.

The Ninja on the left of Kaos, trapped in the places Kaos had hit them, moved around the back of Noel as his lavaic hands started to form something: a fireball. Kaos jumped to the side to avoid being hit. He rolled on the ground. His intention was not to get hit and not to come too close to Noel's fiery body, as his mask would melt and reveal his true face to the world. Without the life force sustenance he needed, Kaos couldn't use his mind control, and this mask was his only chance to hide. His white, human hands darted out from underneath his cloak to throw the knife at Noel with inhuman speed; in flaming anger, the Prince caught the hilt just before the knife drove into his face. The hand holding the knife turned human again so he wouldnt Scorch it. Noel tsked his to to tongue. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with Big Boy toys?" He hurled the blade with equal speed back. Kaos ducked, bent to the ground, and grabbed a sledgehammer.

"You're hardly one to talk," he grunted as he picked it up. "Didnt your mother ever tell you not to pretend to be someone you're not?" Kaos spun in circles, gaining momentum for the sledgehammer's heavy end. When he moved fast enough, Kaos let it go, and the construction piece sailed through the air towards Noel. Hands in lava, Noel hurled a heavy fireball, but the sledgehammer flew through the puff and connected with Noel's body in mid-torso. The floating prince flew backwards and into the side of one of the cars blocking off the road. The metal screamed and was knocked back into oncoming traffic. The screeching of tires followed by crashing pounded at the atmosphere as someone crashed in a chain of death, Noel's body rolling on the ground in collapse. He couldn't hold his weight to push himself back up. Kaos whirled towards the Ninja, finding them herding Seiko towards a nearby vehicle, but Kaos wasn't about to let his Key get away. He shouted out. "KAYUUSSSSSSS! FAAAANNNNNGGGGF"

The Ninja looked towards him, but time moved quicker. Bursting from behind the excavators, their arrival helpful in the honor that they'd occupy the Ninja long enough for Kaos to keep Noel under coma and steal the Yin, Fang and Kayus emerged. Both looked hellbent—and their green eyes, marking that they were Kaos's property, we're murderous. He saw the Ninja pale.

"Hey, you," Kayus said casually to Kai. The Ninja of Fire looked angry.

"YOU!"

Jay became flustered, halfway up the wheel of the drill-thing car doobob when he came to a stop. "Kai, why are there two Kais?" He saw Fang come into view. "AND two Coles?" he looked back on the earth ninja behind his shoulder. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"I wish," Cole grumbled, and jumped down from his perch.

Kai and Cole stalked towards their doubles, weapons ready, but the burst of something from behind the massive car crash behind them made them stop. It was a white van. It pulled madly into the lot, tires squealing at all the bad runs, before spinning into a final dismount. the engine cut with a cough and splutter.

The drivers door opened at the same time the passengers did. Kaos was delighted to see Jace and Ash step out either side, aviators on. WONDERFUL, he thought, his plan sliding into place. Jace waved, winded, at his master. "Yo!" he said. "You called?"

Jace walked towards Kayus and Fang, Ash on his heels, without needing an answer from Kaos. Goooooddddd, he thought, turning for Noel as the boy painfully got to his feet. This was all so PERFECT! Everything was finally falling into place...

...

Zane pulled out his shurikens and stood directly across from—well, himself. It was like standing in front of a mirror, watching himself stare back, but the person standing in front of him was not himself. It was someone who looked a lot like him, that was true. This boy wore sunglasses, and instead of ninja garb, he had on jeans and a white T-shirt. His grin was far too mean to be Zane's, and he had...a gun. Zane did not like guns.

So maybe he was not looking at himself. Maybe this was the Twilight Zone.

"Hello again," said the boy who looked like Jay. The real Jay was standing at his side, spinning his nunchucks, probably just as dumbfounded as Zane.

"Haven't we defeated you more than twice now?" Kai asked, menacing. The other Kai laughed. I never thought I'd hear myself think that, Zane thought.

"Yes, but thats not stopping us from coming back," said the other Zane, flashing his white teeth.

"Nice dental hygiene," the real Zane commented. The other him dropped the smile and scowled.

Jay chuckled. "I hated this," he sighed.

The other Jay pulled a long jagged blade out of the back of his pants. "I much rather enjoyed my part," he said, swinging the machete once. "Nya is an EXCELLENT kisser."

Jay's face turned into fury. "Okay, THAT'S it!" he yelled. "NINJA, GO!"

Zane took that as his cue, and jumped.

...

"Mom, I gotta help them," Lloyd turned towards Misako. She was settling Seiko into a seat of the treader, who was fussing away like a four year old. Lloyd looked on his battling friends worriedly, then to his mother, pleading with his eyes.

"Be careful," she warned.

Lloyd Looked relieved, reaching with his mouth to gently kiss her dirty cheek. Misako was relieved to be free—Kaos hadn't needed anything but her knowledge, thankfully, but she felt there was a trick. She looked at her son, his thankful smile, and tighten of his hand in hers for an infinitismal trice, before jumping out of the treader for his brothers. Lloyd landed safely amid the battle and began helping Zane first.

Misako looked down at the virtually asleep Seiko. Kaos had been moving for her before Noel came—had he thought of something? Misako wondered about the Heart of Darkness, and what that could mean for the Ninja AND for Kaos. Without it, he had no Shadow Key, and Ninjago was safe. But if he found it, everything was doomed.

...

Noel stuck his feet under the hovering chest of Kaos, shoving off the demon eager enough to choke him half to death. His boots were hard, and Kaos went flying backwards, giving Noel the margin to jump back to his feet. His hands burned with lava. "You really should respect those who have the ability to kick your hiding little ass," Noel snapped. Kaos, feet away, swayed on his feet with a shovel in his hands. Noel charged the Dancer, and at the same time, Kaos ran at him, swinging the shovel like Thor's hammer, trying to hit Noel in the head with the actual metal part. Noel ducked his head and grabbed onto Kaos's curiously human hand, and flipped him onto the ground, hearing the sound of flesh burning off under his palm of lava. Kaos screamed further under that mask of his that Noel couldn't wait to melt off. Call him crazy, but Kaos's voice sounded familiar to him.

Kaos hit him on the back of the head with the shovel. Noel grunted. Didn't see that one coming.

Kaos tore out of Noel's hand. The smell of scorched muscular tissue made him want to gag, but he punched Kaos with a burning knuckle in the gut, sending the shadow down with a loud "Oof!" Hunched over, Kaos gagged blood onto Noel's boots. The prince recoiled. "I just had these polished," he whined, and hands on the backs of Kaos's shoulders, burning him, he brought up his knee right into Kaos's face. There was a THUNK and nasty burning in Noel's knee—he'd just kicked metal, for Elathan's sake, don't judge him!—as well as a crack that came from Kaos's broken nose. Noel flipped the half-breed over again. "You're going to pay for a new pair of boots for me," he told the monster, and bent to pick him up.

A hand grabbed the back of his headdress and snapped it off, then held the back of his shirt and yanked him into the air, dropping Kaos in the event that he was being airlifted by a mysterious force. Noel cried out, angry. "My SUIT! Do you know that this stuff isnt CHEAP to make?!"

He was spun around to face his holder. It was some prettyboy in a ninja suit with blonde hair that looked irritated at the look of him. His golden eyes flashed. Noel crossed his arms, dangling. "What do YOU want"—he looked the male up and down—"Goldy Locks?"

The man narrowed his eyes. "I cannot let you hurt my master," he said.

Noel rolled his eyes. "LISTEN, prettyboy, you're signing your death certificate." Noel jerked his thumb towards Kaos as he pushed himself up. "That dude is SERIOUS trouble, mate."

The ninja brought up his fist. Noel held up his hands, returning them back human to look less threatening. "Look, I want to let you go as much as the next guy, but—" The prettyboy ignored him, checked his elbow back, and let his heavy fist spring forward into Noel's face.

...

Zane's shurikens kept bouncing off himself like nothing. The other him kept laughing, saying that he missed, and it was so unkind that is only made Zane mad. He ran after himself, swinging his fists, but never actually HIT the other him.

"You're mean!" Zane yelled.

The other him laughed. "Thanks!"

Zane never meant it as a compliment. He ground his teeth. "I DONT LIKE YOU!" He yelled one last time, and dove for the double of him.

At the last second, in a moment of evil, he pulled out that gun of his cocked it, and aimed the small barrel directly at Zane's chest. Zane felt the dread of his decision come full circle.

His finger closed on the trigger. There was a loud boom, and Zane's ears started to ring.

Owwie.


	67. Chapter 67

**OMG, this chapter is the turning point. It really is...you'll be shocked by the time you're done reading this. WARNING: Some people say some kind of random stuff in here, and that's just for humor. Like there's a thing about ankles, but i dont wanna give it away... ;) So read away, my friends!**

* * *

**CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN:  
**Mirrored Images

"ZANE!" Jay shouted. He heard the gunshot, but didn't see where the bullet went, only noticing his friend drop to the ground after the fact. The other Zane laughed his assets off, but his stupid insanity was not even the slightest bit funny to Jay. He abandoned his own self-destruction (ha, ha) to run to his brother's side. "Zane!" he yelled, rolling over his friend onto his back. Zane blinked at him and smiled.

"Hello," he said brightly, as if he hadn't been shot. "How are you?"

Jay breathed a little relief, but he still couldn't see where the bullet went with all that dark material. He creepily ran his hands over Zane's body in search of the blood, and the hole. "Where'd he shoot you?" he asked. The laughter in the background suddenly got cut short, and when Jay looked up, the reason was that Cole just punched Zane's double in the face. The other Zane dropped like a rock.

"You do NOT get to hurt Zane!" Cole commanded, and started kicking him. Jay saw Kai and Lloyd fending off the other three Bizarro with their powers, containing the issue to just the two of them, a better duo than most. Jay turned down to Zane.

Zane was just smiling at him. "Zane, WHERE DID HE HIT YOU?"

Zane rubbed his nose. "He didn't," Zane said, chipper. Jay was dumbstruck as a hippo. Didn't hit him?

"Uh...what?"

Zane started to sit up. "It went under my arm." he lifted up a jointed elbow and pointed to the gap between his side and arm, smiling a Cheshire cat again. "It hurt my ears and scared me. That's why I fell." He closed his eyes and shrugged. "I'm okay."

Only Zane would ever walk out of this mess with a smile. Only ZANE would make this ranking, which couldve gone so wrong, be washed away just by a reason so seamless. The way this scenario looked like it happened actually never happened at all. Very coincidental in the way this played out. Something about the human Zane was so cheery it made Jay a little worried that he was actually an emotional mess inside or something ironic like that, something people wouldn't expect. A plot twist. Jay wasn't so ingenuous, though, to think that Zane would hide his feelings, considering the guy was not that—excuse him—deep. He gave the youngest of his friends (in the mental state) a pat on the shoulder. It was weird how Zane had outlived all of them, being alive since Ninjago's vintage days, but was still somehow younger than Lloyd.

"Stay here," he said, and stood. He turned to Zane's double, who was being destroyed by Cole, surprisingly. Cole had him pinned on the ground by his hips, straddling him, the gun discarded. Cole's hands shaped fists as he drove both of them into the double's face. One, two. One, two. Sparks flew from his tearing skin, and Cole's face was furious, his vampire face being released—he looked bloodthirsty, but not in the hungry way; more of a sanguinary expression. But description doesn't matter. Cole looked like he wanted to KILL Zane's doppelgänger until he was a like of ripped apart pieces and gears and wires. The angry vampire kept punching, and The other Zane kept screaming like his limbs were being torn to shreds, the way Cole wanted it. What sickened him more was that the other Bizarro were CRYING OUT for him. In the same tones that the real ninja would've if the Bizarro Cole was beating the shit out of the real Zane. Oh my Gosh...they care about him, Jay thought, jaw dropping.

_"AAAAAAASSSSSHHHHHHH!" _

"NOOOO!"

"LET HIM GO!"

"DON'T HURT HIM! _PLEASE!" _

Then he could hear Cole grumbling drawn-out words that were defining the pressure behind his punches, the beatings. Jay listened with a weird sickness in his stomach. "You...stupid...replica...You…don't…get…to…hurt…my …best…friend…you…stupid…bastard…I…will…DESTROY...Y OU. _NO ONE_"—the hardest punch yet came to the double's face, making him scream harder and the others cry out in pain for him—"**_EVER_**"—he punched harder, making his face slam onto the pavement—"_HURTS"_—Zane's second met the eyes of his friends, and a year slipped out his eye—_"MY_"—the others screamed, tortures and heartbroken—"_ZANE_!"

Jay lurched forward, holding out his hand. "Cole, WAIT—"

Too late, Cole grabbed both sides of the crying robot replica's head and pulled, ripping off the crying face with his bare hands. Jay's outstretched hand faltered in midair. He'd wanted to stop Cole from killing that carbon copy because...he felt bad for the Bizarro, like...he never would've wanted anyone to kill Zane—he'd proven himself when he thought her been shot—and he didn't really think about the Bizarro the way he thought about himself. He didn't think they had the feelings that Jay and his friends had, but...maybe they did. You didn't connect villains with caring about anything but their calamitous goal, or tie them into loving people. He felt a little guilty that they'd just killed their Zane. Was their Zane like Jay's Zane? Did he act the same way, just a little more leaning off the rocker? Did he have a childish humor, or a cheeky smile, or did he clap when there was no REASON to clap, just clapping to applaud?

He guessed they'd never know.

Cole stepped off the body and kicked it, one last time. Jay hesitated to see the Bizarro's reaction. When he looked, it was just as bad as he'd thought:

Jay's Bizarro was on his knees, staring with his glasses pulled off and fallen at his feet, cracked and bleeding tears out his eyes. His look of devastation matched what Jay's own face could've stood if he had just seen Zane die the same way. Cole's Bizarro was staring in what only could be described as the face an old man makes when he's trying to read something without his glasses on, lips slightly parted and eyes narrowed with disheartened shock in them, chin tilted back slightly to pretend the glasses he was missing were sitting on the bridge of his nose. He seemed discomfited. And finally, Kai's counterpart was staring, his eyes the only thing that were showing the funereal emotion behind the glass tears that started to fall down his cheeks. Except for his flared nostrils, is mouth was straight, his cheeks were uncrinkled, and his everything was nothing- but his eyes. They showed Jay the downcast, miserable,aggrieved part of him, and it was like watching their reactions to when Zane died the first time, as a robot. It was staring at their reflection, watching the prelude to a suicidal change that would happen in all of them. (Save for the Kai that wasn't present for the death.) Jay felt _guilty _for doing this to them. He knew how awful it felt to lose Zane, and they'd just wished upon their enemy the one thing that the Ninja barely lived through.

Lloyd and Kai stopped their blasphemy, finding themselves watching, too, as Jay's half crumpled to the ground and began sobbing. No one had expected that to happen. "Cole" began his lip in bobbing, his hands shaking with lack of control over what just happened. "Kai" just cried.

"Jay" seemed like he couldn't fathom this. "You killed him," he whispered, barely. From his hands, he dropped the machete at Lloyd's feet, and a second later, "Cole" and "Kai" dropped their switchblade and pistol, surrendering. Both of them sunk to their knees and stared at the body of their friend. "Jay" held his head in his hands, and began to sob.

Jay felt really awkward. He heard Misako jump down from the treader behind him, her motherly face tight and compassionate. She untied the green ascot at her throat, and like any loving mother would, bent down beside "Jay" and handed him her accessory. He lifted his head, stuffy and eyes red_ (Do I really look that weird when I cry? _Jay thought) to look from her face to the held ascot. Misako moved her hand in urging for him to take it. Her soft smile gave him an undocumented license to take it, and after a second, "Jay" took it from her and pressed his face into it.

_The best way to defeat your enemy, _Sensei Wu had once said, _is to make him your friend. _

_..._

Noel was basically chucked by a prettyboy with superhuman freakazoid strength through the air and high into the sky before cracking down on the ground, coincidentally happening to dismount by his brother's feet. Noel couldn't be harmed, but he grunted on impact anyway, slamming his back into the ground and having the wind knocked right out of his lungs. He wheezed for a second, looking up at his brother's face staring _down, _and gave a charismatic wave of his fingers. "Hiya, brother," he grunted. Kai raised an eyebrow at him.

"_Wonder_ful!" vociferated Kaos's LOUD and OBNOXIOUS voice from somewhere outside of Noel's vision 360. He blinked hard. He'd been morally destroyed by some half-breed that Noel should've owned like a boss, but instead ended up being like the mentally challenged faggot who was being controlled by an electronic handheld device and told to run around like the game's little bitch and get his ass kicked by the laughing villain. But NOEL was supposed to be the villain. He was supposed to be the guy that Kaos shit his pants over. He was, as the plan said, supposed to appear in the rising conflict and save the day by beating the crap out of the half-Shadow Dancer, but _nuuuuuuuu, _he was the one being destroyed. By a PRETTYBOY. Having a minion defeat your rival was evidence that Kaos couldn't handle any problems himself and instead hid behind not only that mask, but a bunch of other ass-kickers as well, and his cowardice made Noel feel a lot better about himself.

The Prince of Darkness sat up to see Kaos limping towards them. Noel had burned him good, and if he was a half-breed, those wounds would NOT quickly heal. At least that might put him out of business for a while.

The ninja tard who had chucked Noel was walking behind him. Gasps of shock came from the Ninja. "DAIJIRO?!" they cried.

Kai's face twisted. "I _knew _there was something wrong with you."

"Daijiro? I got beat up by a wo-male with a name as lame as _DAIJIRO?_" Noel threw up his hands, astounded. "This is LAME. I demand a rematch!"

Kaos chuckled. That chuckle sounded FAMILIAR. _Dammnnnnn.._.Noel pursed his lips. Where had he heard that voice before? "You can have one ANYTIME you like," said Kaos, and he spread his human hands in a wide circle. Noel scowled at the powwow dance and climbed to his feet beside Kai, putting his hands on his hips.

"Now would be nice," he said, and jumped. Daijiro punched him in the jaw, and Noel flew to the side, smacking his arm on the tar and groaning again.

Well. This was humiliating.

"That is one awesome secret weapon," said Jay sarcastically. Noel rolled onto his side.

"SILENCE!" He yelled, struggling to sit up. "I will have no criticism of that sarcastic nature, or it will be off with your head!"

Kaos chuckled again. He moved forward more. "Such a _dysfunctional _family you have," he said, seemingly speaking to Lloyd. "They would be wonderful reality T.V stars. I think they'd outshine even Snooki."

"I don't know what's creepier," Cole cocked his head, picking up his scythe, "the fact that you have blood coming out the nostrils of your metal nose-holes, or the fact that you know who Snooki is."

Jay shrugged. "Even enemies get bored," he said. "Although I wouldn't be so desperate as to watch _that _show."

"ENOUGH! Let's settle this, Ninja. A trade." Kaos's blue eyes glared out from underneath his metal brows inside the container. It was Noel's turn to limp towards Kai, grumbling about rematches and their overratedness. Kai watched him come over, but Noel didn't see any worry there, just a blank stare. Of course, Kai wouldn't be open to the idea of his little brother, a stranger, being relied on so heavily as to end the evil that was taking over Ninjago when he was considered evil himself. This did not pertain to being trusted instantly as a brother. It would take more time to break the ice with lava on this one, much different from his tiny relationship with Silas. Noel snapped his fingers out of habit.

Kaos wanted attention. Cole stepped up to Zane's side, reaching down a hand to help up his friend, completely ignoring the fact that he just killed the same guy and now his sad friends were crying like wusses on the ground. He walked towards the sides of Lloyd and Kai, and together, the five ninja formed a line, a blockade against Kaos. Noel tilted his head and waved his fingers at Kaos. "What KIND of trade?" He asked, beating the ninja peoples to it.

Kaos ignored him. Usual for Noel. He was ignored by everyone. "I'll trade you your parents," he said, producing his Shadow Key from underneath his cloak. Noel sucked in his breath. The _power _radiating off that thing... "for the Yin. Your choice, heroes: Your family, or a girl you don't even know."

...

Seiko was half asleep when she felt something pointy jab her upper arm. She was too tired to even swat it a way, a second before a hand wrapped around her mouth, stifling the muffled groan she could've given, so paralyzed by the harsh drainage of energy and life force from opening that stupid Void. She blamed this on Cole; it was a dreamless sleep that was so in depth to lack of sharp images that she could barely open her eyes. It was a struggle when she felt arms curl around her waist—very thin arms, that hefted her weight easily into the air. Seiko didn't think it would be Twinkies. She knew his arms, the sound of his heartbeat, and whom she was being lifted by was not him, sadly. _NO_, not sadly. Seiko hated being carried places by Twinkies. She was a big girl and could move around her own weight, but he was such a boy that he didn't give a rat's ass about whether or not she brought her brains to the candy store or not.

Seiko mumbled something incoherent. She heard it, but she was not even sure what she said. She heard voices, somewhere, in the distance—Kaos's voice, comparative and flexible. She couldn't stand the sound of him, but, somehow, she felt like she knew that voice. Seiko fluttered her eyelids, even though they felt like a ton _each _just to raise up, and looked for a face to the person she was being carried by. It was too blurry to make out, but she caught a whisper of dark hair and skin.

Seiko made a noise. She heard a breath rush through who held her body, dangling and head limp, in their chest and through their mouth, coming out as a silent _"Shhhhhh." _It was a girl's voice. Seiko tried again to see, but she was so tired she couldn't do much but stay in that place where her eyes were shut and her ears were tuned in. She hated that place. A lot of times, when she was sick as a little girl, that was the place Seiko was stuck in, trying to wake up when her mother told her to so her soup wouldn't get cold, but she came nearly impossible to rising from the sleeping world where her eyes were glued and her ears could still listen, but mind couldn't quite translate.

Far away, she heard Cole's voice. She thought she understood part of what he said. "...family...Seiko is still a part of mine..."

"...can't just...her away." Twinkies. Definitely Twinkies. Her holder-er moved her through space, carrying her to a place Seiko didn't know. Either her ears weren't as tuned in as she'd thought, or the person carrying her didn't make noise when they scurried quickly around things, stopping sometimes and then moving quickly again after that. Seiko felt ridiculously tossed around by some flippid flippin flappin floopin...flapeepin...flaaaa...

"Do you have her?" whispered a voice. A girl's, but not the one she'd heard earlier. She recognized this one. It was Pretty Princess. _What are YEW doin' here, Princess Sparkle? _she thought towards Lloyd's birth mother, feeling her body slowly decline down onto something padded and fabric-ish-shish-shish. Her unintelligible impassivity was making this really hard to perform a narrative. She didn't understand what was happening. _I'm supposed to be all super and tough and now I'm being dreamy-fied by some stupid Void sleep issue problem thingymcdoobob. _She needed to open her eyes.

"I got her," whispered another girl's voice. This is the one that she had heard before Pretty Princess came into play. The hard, carpet-like surface under her body poked her legs. That voice, too, was really familiar. It was on the tip of her fat cow tongue...What the hell was that name? "Kaos is arguing with the Ninja. No one noticed."

"Good. Now all we have to do is get her stand-in over there, and then we'll be good to go." Danielle whispered. Seiko pried open her eyes, meeting the ceiling of what looked like the roof of the inside of somebody's stalker van or something really dumb like that. She rolled her head to the side, cheek touching her shoulder, and stared hard through the veil of blur, fighting to keep her eyes open. She saw the golden hair of Dani at the doorway, and the face of a dark-skinned woman that Seiko had only just met: Maru. What the hell were _those _two doing together? They were looking down at her, serious and all movie-scene poker faced. She met Dani's eyes and saw a glimpse of regret there. Seiko's eyes fell shut, but she again worked against the tides to keep herself awake. Her moan was yet another that came only as a whisper.

"I have a _name," _snapped a voice. Seiko's blood ran cold. She'd know that voice anywhere, no matter what kind of chattering crowd she was in, no matter who was snapping gum in her ear—there was no mistaking Maya Kiko's voice sedulously tearing into Seiko's eardrums. Her heart dropped. Prying awake her sleepy wonder, Seiko kept her eyes open long enough to see no flaming red hair, but a black sheeny glob in the horizon, and blue eyes watching her from Maru's side. She was staring into a mirror.

But she wasn't.

Maya had dyed her hair and cut it to the exact length and shade of Seiko's—her eyes had to be hidden behind contacts. Her red lips were lathered in perfectly applied lipstick. Oh, no. Seiko's _stand in_—was she being kidnapped by her own allies and replaced by her doppelganger? Seiko tried to move, but her nerves and joints became glued together, sticking her like felt to the surface of the carpeted van's lower-class back carrier. Her eyelids drifted back shut.

Danielle spoke next. "Did you put the _Dormientes_ _syndrome_ fluid in her?"

"You mean the sleeping stuff?" Maya asked.

"_Yes, _that."

"Of course. I wanted to stick it in her face, but I didn't."

"She belongs to Kaos now. She's his property." _What?! No I'm not! _Seiko again tried to initiate her escape, but the unflattery of being secured to the back of a van by that doormat-entrails or whatever the hell Danielle said kept her from moving. Her veins were filled with lead over having her blood in it. She was pretty much worthless at this point. But the idea of 'belonging' to Kaos frightened her.

_I gotta get out of here. _

Did Maya carry Seiko here?

_Oh, who cares! MOVE, idiot! _

She didn't move.

"You better get moving, Maya. They could notice she's gone any second now." Danielle advised. There was the sound of a groan.

"You're lucky he Compelled me to do this, Bitch," snapped Maya, sounding angry. Seiko was actually a tiny bit hopeful, but for what was the real question. "Otherwise, I would be _helping _Little Me rather than going against her." Was that supposed to be comforting?

Danielle didn't say anything but "Let's just pray you don't screw this up for us."

The creak of the back doors to the van closing in on Seiko made her grow hysterical. _No! No! _The thud and followed silence was enough to seal the deal. She wanted to move, but suddenly everything was becoming too hard to stand, and her body just told her _Go to sleep. _Seiko fought the tidal wave of black threatening to pull her under, but as the seconds grew, the weight of the tsunami took her over, and Seiko was crashed upon with a wave of cold too icy to withstand. It pushed her deeper underneath the unbreathable surface, the black, murky waters ready to swallow her into the world below. She clawed her way against the water, but the water was not able to give her enough traction to pull her back into the air; she was grabbed by the ankles and pulled down further by the monster that lived under her bed, the creature that crept in her closet, and every other kiddish nightmare that Seiko had ever had. Each one of them came rushing back at her, and all she could do was scream into the water, the last of her breath escaping in a few thick bubbles, her cry for help muffled before it actually reached the surface to become free. Seiko fell into an unconscious drift, sinking and floating, dream dropping further and further into the unknown of what was to become of the little Yin that never could.

...

When Kaos saw the head of Maya Kiko climb into the top of the giant vehicle behind the Ninja, he knew it was go-time. It was too easy, distracting them with false promises that they'd get their family back if they handed over the Yin (they were surprisingly resilient) when he was actually taking her from underneath their noses. None of them could've seen it coming. Now, they wouldn't have the Yin OR their parents, and that gave Kaos, again, the upper hand. He didn't even need their old parents but they were viewed as leverage, really. Oh, well.

"You can't have her," decided Zane finally, stomping his foot like that would stop anything. Kaos didn't stop grinning under the mask. _This is too easy, _he thought. _better than stealing candy from a baby. I already have won, and none of them even know it. _The spell that Kaos had wanted Danielle to put on Maya would disguise her vampirism from everyone, as well as her own body, for a month. Meaning that stupid vampire Cole and his clairvoyant friend Zane would never even be able to notice; her supernatural essence was of the undercover by the potent spell. It allowed her to eat human food, have human traits, up until the spell wore off. She'd be able to string these fools along for a _month _and they'd never notice! That was plenty more time than Kaos needed, but the extra wiggle room was very nice to have in this game.

He had already won.

This was _so fun. _The underdog springing up to take his claim. Nothing had ever worked out so perfectly before.

He met Maya's eyes for a brief second. She appeared bored. Then, he said, moving back to the Ninja, "Well that's a shame. Boys? Quit playing mourners now and beat them up. I'm tired of this." The Ninja looked over their shoulders as the Bizarro just, as though a switch was flipped, stood up and quit their crying. The act shocked the Ninja who had been played by their own counterparts, the Bizarro that actually really never would've cared if their friend died or not.

"I've killed Ash before myself," boasted Jace. "So I wouldn't be that bothered by him dying for the fourth time." He picked up his machete.

"I threw him at a brick wall once," offered Fang.

"I ripped off his ear a day ago," Kayus twirled the pistol around his finger. "I also bit him in the ankle."

Jace turned on him, frowning. "How'd you manage that?" He asked. Kayus shrugged.

"Continuity error," he explained. Jace nodded as if that made sense.

"Just _beat them up already!" _yelled Kaos. He grew impatient.

The Bizarro leaped at the Ninja, bowling them over instantly. Daijiro jumped in to join the fight, attacking _against _who believed he was their ally, and a moment later, Maru appeared for the fight. It was one helluva mess that Kaos was laughing thickly at, because in the end, he was still winning. He disappeared from their sights as soon as they were occupied by battle, wanting to take Lloyd Garmadon's head and shove it into a metal pole and scream, "I BEAT YOU!"

If anyone knew how to hate, it was Kaos. He hated one person more than anything in this whole damn world, and that was Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon.

He would never stop until he was dead.

* * *

**Moo. ;-;**

**I will say nothing but **

**GO HAVE AN AWESOME DAY/NIGHT OR THE DAYxNIGHT BABY OR WHATEVER IT IS YOU CHOOSE! xD**


	68. Chapter 68

**CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT:  
**In the Place of Someone You Love

"Alright, boys, let's show ourselves what we've got!" yelled Cole over the roar of the fight, puckering his fists in hopes to attack his angry counterpart, but every move he seemed to throw was mimicked exactly and performed professionally, as if his Bizarro was the one who spent two grueling years training at early dawn hours rather than Cole. It felt like the _other _him was faster. He nearly punched Cole in the face three times, but luckily, he moved out of the way. He swung his scythe through the air, the blade cutting swiftly the particles of dust that lingered between the pressure of the earth and their own personal gravitational defiance, but never once measuring a blow against the _other _him. Cole yet again ducked the right hook that came sailing at his face, attempting to knock himself out at the knees, but the other one brought up his foot in a kick. Cole zipped from the area before it hit him.

If he could remember correctly, they needed to land a blow to their Bizarro in order to take him out. Cole was certain going into the fight that this would be easy, but he'd forgotten how discernibly difficult it was to hurt _him_self. The discreet attempts to destroy his reflection failed thus far. It felt bad, but at the same time, if anyone were in his place, they'd understand the blood and sweat Cole was drenched with.

Outside his own battle, Lloyd and Zane had no equivalents to kill. Who were they fighting? Cole didn't want to take his eyes of _him_self, for fear that if he was distracted for only a second, he'd get hit and it would be the _real _Cole combusting into ash.

He forged on. That's what leaders did; they didn't complain, they didn't fuss—they grit their teeth and soldiered through whatever they were doing. A good leader, anyway. A better leader didn't even grit their teeth.

Cole tried to keep his jaw unclenched while he kicked his ass.

…

Kaos found the white van waiting for him around the corner of the nearest building, idling. He felt puny and injudicious having to walk the _human way _to his ride. Real villains didn't have to do such preposterous things.

He felt like shit. His nose was probably fractured, his body was burned _horridly _by Noel's deceptive black fire, and he thought he sprained his ankle. He needed Danielle to make an herbal rub that would cast out the scorch marks tattooing his body, and probably cast a witchy spell to re-erect his nose. He pulled open the sliding door to the van, still feeling incredibly _stupid _for having to commit himself to the relationship with human transportation and not his own transcendentally scathing ways, and slammed shut the sliding door. Tinted windows kept his image hidden from the outside, but inside, he was free to stare at all the people he wanted.

He found the Compelled Maru at the driving wheel, but Danielle was not present. "Where's Danielle?" He barked.

"She went to the monastery to grab a few herbs for your healant," Maru said dreamily, cast under his mind-controlled spell distributed by the power of Fang's double-Compulsion, a trick-for-trade at his twin.

Rolling his eyes, Kaos set down the incomplete Shadow Key on the middle seat beside him, then asked, "Where's Seiko?"

"In the back."

Kaos turned in his seat, finding the girl lain across the back compartment in the dark, her body completely naked after the stealing of her outfit to Maya, so that Maya could properly look as her stand-in. What good would it be to go through the trouble of putting her there if she didn't wear the same outfit? Maya, too, had been Compelled by Fang (and a little bit of potion) to follow Kaos's orders until he set her free, because having that vampire on his side—even though against her will—would pay off in the future. As it did now, so he could have Seiko in his captivity with the vampire playing her part back with the pathetic Ninja and their stupid hero taskforce.

"Wonderful. I need life-force so I can gain back my strength. Drive, and keep your eyes on the road," he commanded to Maru, and she obeyed. Knowing she wouldn't look back at him, Kaos pulled off his cloak, then, after hesitation, pulled off his metal mask. With his true face revealed but continually camouflaged by the Compulsion on his chauffer and the blackened windows, no one could _truly _see him, but he felt naked and a little afraid without his power or that tin guise to hide him. It had been a _long_ time since his real face was in broad daylight. Kaos clambered over the middle seat and into the back compartment, his eyes greedily roving over the body of the Yin, finding it supple and exposed. She was beautiful, in a sense, to a creature that enjoyed the lithe body of a bendable woman. To the average Joe, she was just a normal girl, with a Plain Jane body. But to _him, _it was like walking into a men's club and having eyes only for the strippers, not for the human beings.

Kaos's desire for life force conquered his undeniable lust to admire a woman's body, and he crept over her, watching her sleeping soul for a moment. He'd have his way with her tonight. But for now, he would rather enjoy the salty tang of life force being drained from her body as he sucked it from her, feeding the craving "stomach" inside of him that never ate disgusting human food, but ate these things. He leaned towards her, taking her jaw between thumb and forefinger, and crushed his lips on hers.

His inhales instigated the beginning of taking the life force. Life force was this sweet, but extremely salty, mist that came from the soul, almost like its fragrance. He gained it through his mouth and tasted it with his tongue, opening her slack jaw wider as he hungered after the way her powerful soul dominated him. The life force Kaos lost was now flooding into him, filling him with its total mileage to his power. The heady taste of it was like chocolate to the humans; he was intoxicated by it, begging for more. The thick, creamy tang of her corruptible soul, the darkness of her heart, was making this the best meal he'd ever had, a kind he craved seconds with. He'd never imagined feeding off another, more powerful creature could be so…_delicious. _He'd be sustained for _weeks _with just this one filling!

Seiko's life force made him moan. He disconnected their lips, dragging his tongue out of her mouth, so that he could take a breath. He looked down on her unconscious face. She didn't know a thing. "My, my," he breathed, bending to kiss her again. "You're really something."

His human hands held her face, and his human tongue tangoed with hers sleepy. His human lips refused to leave hers. His human ears heard the soft accordance of her breathing, and his human torso could feel the way her body arched automatically underneath his attention, instinctively begging for more. Kaos's human form lusted for her.

_The power…_he thought. _The power I have with her in my custody…The things that I now have because I own this power…I will be unstoppable. The darkest king this realm has ever seen!_

_I can only hope that she will agree to be my queen. Though it will take fuss, I will win her over…And our heir will certainly be magnificent…Maybe we shall Compel her into my grasp. _Kaos pulled away and rested on his back beside her, staring at the ceiling. He was full. His hand reached over and slipped over her body. _She will be mine. With her power, I will consume Ninjago into nothing but my own image, and there isn't anything a group of teenagers can do to stop me. Especially that Lloyd Garmadon. _Kaos curled his lip. _Nothing. _

_Nothing at all. _

…

"HERCHOW!" Jay yelled, swinging his nunchucks AND MISSING. Why was it so _hard _to hit this guy, who technically was him, but technically wasn't because there can't be two Jays and Jay wasn't like this guy, so _technically _this guy wasn't him but stole his looks. Right?

"You're pathetic," spat the other Jay.

Jay swung his nunchucks. "Then so are you, because you're me." Jay's head spun, and it seemed like the other him didn't like that sentence with a necessary frown. "Ah…Let's just fight!"

They continued.

…

Zane wanted to help, but he didn't know how.

He threw his shurikens at things, but for some reason, he was missing every object. It was not fair that he had been spot-on to hit those mean dark creatures before but could now not even hit a simple target. It wasn't very enlightening. He also felt a little faint, stumbling backwards from the fight and falling on his butt to the tar, dizzily staring at the world around him as it spun and shook…Maybe it was the fluid in his ears getting tossed around too quickly, but that did not seem likely. Zane put a hand to his forehead.

It was burning. He tried to get to his feet, but the images of his friends were not intact, making the ground seem much farther away than it really was. He looked to the side to find that boy, Noel, pummeling poor, evil Daijiro with fiery fists. A figure he thought was Lloyd was helping Jay get his Bizarro to stop moving so Jay could hit him. To Zane, it looked like a game of synchronized ballet, because everyone kept using the same attacks on their double. A dizzy, misplaced ballet.

He fell backwards onto the tar. Things were moving…too…fast…His eyes shut. He just needed a second to breathe. That was all.

…

Kai was fighting pretty well with his sword against the pistol, every bullet fired being repelled by the fine blade that he twirled and repositioned to every shot. It seemed to irritate the hell out of the _other_ him that no matter where he aimed, a blow couldn't be managed. The pointy-haired freak standing across from Kai sourly reminded him of how much he missed his ridgy hair.

"Love the locks, Joan Jett," said the _other _him, reading Kai's thoughts. The real one of the two scowled. "Where'd you get it cut? The prison salon?"

"That didn't make _any _sense," Kai said, and swung his sword. The other backed up to avoid being sliced apart by the fine point.

"Sure it does. I mean, you're a refugee," said the _other _one. Kai rolled his eyes and tried again.

"A wrongly _accused _refugee," he stated.

"Technically, you did do it," the Bizarro grinned crazily. "You just did it in my body."

Kai brought the sword upon him again. Another dodge was ensued. "You're disgusting."

"Prove it!" sang the Bizarro, and he danced away. Kai ran after him menacingly, focused on the back of his head so he could slice it open and let that stupid brain tumble out, when his foot caught onto something, and it was _Kai _who came tumbling down. His elbows hit the gravel with an alarming force that could've crippled him. He whipped is head around to see what he'd fallen on.

Not _what, _but _who. _

"Zane!" Kai cried, and ignoring the Bizarro, crawled over to his friend. Zane looked like he was asleep, but how deep into sleep could you go in the middle of the day with the sun beating at eighty degrees and a battle going on all around you? He didn't respond when Kai shook his shoulders, not so much as a flicker. Something was very wrong. "Zane!"

"Looks like I win," said Kai's voice, and he whirled to find the Bizarro standing above him, gun loaded, and pointed directly at him. Kai stared down the barrel. And his sword had been discarded when he fell; if he ducked, the bullet would hit Zane, but if he didn't, he'd get his brains blown out. Kai didn't have time to muster a plan. "Bye-bye, hero," crowed his darker double, and there was the sound of a click.

_This is it, _Kai thought the split second before it happened. _I'm going to die. _

"NOOOO!"

The voice came out of nowhere, and a second later, the golden halo and black kimono of Lloyd leapt over Zane and Kai and knocked wholly into the Bizarro, pushing him to the ground. Kai didn't miss the loud gunshot that happened in the same instant. His own face was intact, but where had that bullet gone?

Lloyd wrestled with the Bizarro, knocking the gun out of his hand. It ironically skidded over the rocky black tar towards Kai and landed at his knees, where Kai saw his opportunity to beat his Bizarro and get this out of the way; as Lloyd pinned the double underneath him, Kai got to his feet, running towards them with the rambunctious triumph already parading his spirit. Kai looked into his Bizarro's eyes, and watched the flash of _aw jeez _go through his head. Kai took the moment to make for a smile. "Looks like _I _win," Kai stated, and bent down to punch _him_self in the face.

The Bizarro disappeared into white dust. Lloyd's body sunk without the other supporting it so he was kneeling on the ground now, and the stooping Kai reached over to pull the kid into his arms. They'd gotten rid of two Bizarro now, and that only left the other two to get rid of. Zane, still sleeping at random, was going to also need a little bit of an eye watching him, to becoming a safer ninja. Kai glimpsed Noel over Lloyd's shoulder. Noel was just dusting off his hands, at his feet a torched shape that was probably Daijiro. Noel could watch Zane for him…right?

Kai held tightly onto Lloyd. It took a minute for the Green Ninja to respond to the hug, his responding grip a little weak. "Thanks," Kai breathed in his ear, trying not to let his mind get carried away with how many ways this position could go from appreciative to raunchy.

"S-sure," Lloyd grunted. In his tone was something odd, but not the sexy odd that was usually in his cracking voice. Kai pulled his face out of the sweet smell of Lloyd's clean hair and pushed back. To his horror, Lloyd immediately, without Kai's body as his prop, sank onto his hands and knees, bending over the asphalt with a squinched look on his face, as though he was pushing something heavy. Kai grabbed one shoulder.

"Lloyd?" He breathed. Lloyd gave him a look that had one phrase written all over the story in his eyes: _I'm sorry. _He pushed his friend up and felt his own eyes widen when he saw the stick and spread of a darker, more glistening circle appearing on Lloyd's top, the inner expression of blood being pumped out of the small, circular hole against his stomach, the shock nearly making Kai fall into his friend's arms. He looked back and forth between Lloyd's teary, apologetic eyes and the subtle push of red life cramming the wound in his stomach.

"Lloyd!" he screamed, his voice filled with horror. His friend fell against the ground without being able to hold himself up, and every part of Kai's sanity came crashing down on him. In all the tragedies of the things Kai had been through, each of all ranging from being scorned to losing his own life, this proved to be the most tragic, the one that was making it extremely hard to breathe right now. The love of his life had just been shot because of him, and guilt would later take over him, but for now it was only the insubtle shocks of knowing what had happened. You saw it in movies, in TV, read about it, but never quite understood what it was like to be _so in love _with someone and have them taken away before you. Kai's next shriek stopped Cole and Jay from fighting so they could be distracted by the awful wails that came from Kai's throat. To be honest, he'd never heard such a sound before, much less from his own throat. It was…_heartbreaking. _

Kai rolled Lloyd onto his back, watching his love's eyes roll into the back of his head. "NO!" Kai yelled, looking at the wound. Did you do CPR when there was a bullet inside the victim? He didn't know anything about medicine, or healing, or whatever the hell Yuki spent his whole life studying. He shook Lloyd's shoulder through the blur of tears that threatened him. "Lloyd! Don't go! Stay with me, Lloyd, stay! Don't close your eyes!" _If I can just keep him conscious…_

Footfalls, plenty of footfalls, came towards him, but Kai's eyes were glued to the sight of a tear rolling out the corner of Lloyd's eye. A _tear. _He was crying. Kai didn't care about how his vows to keep his hands off Lloyd were crippling him anymore, and he grabbed onto either side of his kimono, ripping apart the material so he could see the wound without the time to admire his body, no matter how much it hurt to see the part of Lloyd that was killing him. The figures of Jay and Cole dropped to his side, and Misako appeared, but Kai didn't care about their reactions. The hole in Lloyd's abdomen was gushing blood, and it covered his chest. The actual hole itself was disgusting. A deep burgundy, flesh torn, ripped up—Kai would've thought about throwing up, but all he cared about was keeping his friend alive. The two surviving Bizarro were forgotten. "Stay with me, Lloyd!" he yelled sternly, then snapped his fingers, never taking his eyes off the bullet hole. "Do you remember the day that you played pranks on us, as a kid?" he asked, trying to keep Lloyd's attention. The struggle to keep his eyes open crippled Lloyd's pain-troubled face. He looked miserable. "You dyed Zane's suit pink, and you destroyed Cole's—whatever he was making, and you messed with Jay's sparring bot, and you beat my high score? Do you remember that?"

Lloyd barely moaned to show Kai he was listening.

"Do you remember the time that you kicked Pythor in the face, and you were _so proud _of yourself?" Kai grabbed onto Lloyd's hand, holding it tightly between his own. Tears came through his vision so heavily that the shapes of his best friend's handsome face were nothing but a graphic blur. "You kept telling us the story of how you did it over and over again." Kai's body shook. _You're gonna be okay, _he said to him through some mental telepathy.

Lloyd's eyes drifted shut.

_"What do we do?" _Jay asked Misako.

"CPR," she said immediately. She shimmied closer to his chest. "I'll give him fifteen compressions," she said, all business. "Someone needs to call the hospital."

"With what?" Cole asked, waving his arm around. "A pipe?"

"Go ask someone to borrow their phone!" Misako ordered, and nodded to the barricade. Cole and Jay both jumped to their feet.

Kai barely looked over his shoulder. "JAY!" When he heard footsteps stop, he said, "Zane."

He didn't know what happened after that. Misako pushed onto Lloyd's chest, and Lloyd kept flickering his eyelids, trying to keep himself awake. _You're so strong, _Kai thought, absentmindedly kissing the back of Lloyd's hand. _You've always been so strong. _"And the time that you learned Spinjitzu," he reminded him aloud. "You remember that, don't you?"

This time, Lloyd didn't answer.

Misako moved onto his face, pinching shut his nose and tilting back his chin. She bent and breathed air into her son's mouth twice, then moved back onto his chest again.

"You can do this," Kai said, wobbling his voice on accident. He fought to keep it even. _I don't want to lose you. I love you so much it hurts every time I look at you. _"You beat the Overlord! You can do anything!"

The crunch of Noel's boots coming towards them made Kai's ears twitch, but he ignored everything after that. Every part of his body hurt, but the part that hurt the most was his heart. Lloyd stared at the sky, blinking once, eyelids twitching. Kai squeezed his hand. "Lloyd! Fight! You've always fought, and this is just one _tiny _bullet; c'mon! You can do this! _Fight!_" His voice grew more harsh and firm to keep the kid's attention. But Lloyd's blood, sticking together Misako's hands, coating that of Kai's, bringing out the dead in him, was starting to disappear within Lloyd's face and render his skin paler than normal. Kai squeezed his hand. Misako kept pumping. "Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon! Don't you go out on me!" Kai yelled. "Don't you give up!" Lloyd's eyes flickered. "You can't _leave _me." Kai's voice cracked. Tears cascaded his cheeks. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

There had always been a question in Kai's mind about whether or not he was _in love _with Lloyd. He always wondered if he was misinterpreting his feelings into something bigger than they were, or if how he felt emotionally towards this boy—this kid—was just something small that could easily be replaced. But in death, he found that there was something that you _can't _replace, and that's the feeling of _wholeness _that you're given by the love this person shows you, and without Lloyd, Kai knew he was nothing. Nothing of anything. He'd missed him so much when he was in the Elemental Realm, and only when they were recently reunited did Kai start to feel himself being pieced together—slowly, but happening—into himself again. Being apart from Lloyd made his chest hurt and his lungs become handicapped, and all he lived for was just _protecting _him, but not only that. He used to believe that as long as Kai was around, Lloyd would always be safe. But Kai _was _around, and now Lloyd was dying. It was his fault.

There was no question anymore that Lloyd was the love of his life. He felt angry for doubting the feeling, but he also understood himself when he wasn't sure what he wanted. Did he want to be the odd guy out of the group that fell for his teammates worse than Jay fell for Nya? Kai had always had a feeling that he wasn't the same as everyone else. He thought that was explained away when he learned he was the son of Elathan. But that wasn't what made him feel so weird. It wasn't that he was a retired Prince of Darkness, or that he was a naturally hotheaded guy, or that he had died once and returned, or that he was so morbidly impatient that he'd die if he was bored. It was that Kai was never _whole. _He was never one piece before he met Lloyd. But with Lloyd in his life, Kai was complete.

And now, that feeling of belonging was being taken from him right before his very eyes.

Kai wasn't going to stand for that. He wasn't going to let himself be beat up by reality—not anymore. He was in love with Lloyd Garmadon. And damnit, he was going to protect the love of his life from _anything. _Even himself.

Misako was pushing her hands to Lloyd's chest, but Lloyd wasn't responding well. His eyes kept fluttering. He wasn't holding on. And Kai was the reason he had held on so far—he couldn't let him down _now. _He took Misako's hands from Lloyd's chest, and ignoring the look of astonishment, Kai reached towards Lloyd and pulled him into his arms. Lloyd's eyes, lifting into the air, rolled into the back of his head. He closed them.

"Lloyd," he whispered, and pushed Lloyd's hair out of his eyes. "Lloyd, I know that you've always thought about me as your best friend, and maybe now isn't the best time to be saying this, but it's not like we have much time." Lloyd's eyelids didn't move. Blood streamed out of the corner of his mouth. "But all this time I've known you, there isn't anything I've ever felt more real than what I feel…towards you." The last two words cracked on his lips. He swallowed thickly. Footsteps ran across the tar. He ignored those, too. He ignored the whole damn world, and focused on Lloyd, on the weight of his body in Kai's arms, on his thick eyelashes, on his sculpted nose, on his pink lips. Kai touched his friend's cheek. "And if I ever lost you, I couldn't live. I couldn't ever live with myself knowing that you died without me, that you _left _me here, and I couldn't ever feel happy again. I could never live without you. It's too hard. I…I love you so much." Kai breathed against his face, crying. Tears strolled his cheeks. "I've been in love with you since you grew up. I never felt alive until then. Never felt…real. But you changed me. You made me feel alive, even when I was dead. And nothing in this whole world could _ever _make me feel that way. Nothing but you. I _love _you, Lloyd. Don't leave me here. Take me with you. Please."

The last word became a whisper. His whisper sunk into the press of his mouth against Lloyd's, tasting the raw metal of his blood, but ignoring that. His heart thundered because he was finally kissing Lloyd, but it hurt to know that there wasn't any reception back. It wasn't supposed to happen this way, but there wasn't that much time left. He kissed him, and he fell in love with him, and he hurt because Lloyd wasn't breathing against his cheek. When Kai broke the kiss, Lloyd's head fell backwards, limp.

He wasn't moving.

Kai broke into sobs. His head fell against Lloyd's chest. It wasn't _fair. _It was no _fair. _Why did Kai have everything taken from him? Why? It wasn't _fair! _

He trembled violently. He kept his face buried in the blood of Lloyd's chest, in the sound of silence that came from the ribcage underneath.

He was dead.

…

Cole stared in shock, from Jay's side, who both stood beside Zane. He couldn't process this quick enough.

Kai was in love with Lloyd.

Cole had had a thought before that this was going on, a little hunch, but he never mentioned it to anyone because, well, he didn't want to be intrusive. Still, didn't think he'd hear it said like _this. _

He exchanged a glance with Jay.

Then, a bright ray of light shone from out the corner of his eye, and he turned his head to find something as bright as the sun glowing its way into the scene, a starburst right before Cole's very eyes.

…

_"Kai."_

He was too numb to understand his name. With Lloyd set on the ground, Kai kept his face buried in his chest.

_"Kai, do you remember me?"_

The woman's voice was gentle, sincere, and familiar, echoing through the air as though it had two layers to it. But he couldn't raise his head to care enough. Kai turned the other cheek to Lloyd's sticky, bloody chest, and closed his eyes.

_"Kai, my name is Zara. You remember me from the Elemental Realm."_

Kai had had plenty of arguments with that woman. Too many to count. She was very stubborn when it came to keeping her point valid—which none of them had been—and wouldn't ever let Kai go one Elemental day without a fight. Of course he remembered her. But he was too numb.

_"We've been watching you, like we always told you we would."_

Numb. Kai hated how unnaturally quiet Lloyd's chest was, and cried still, but quietly.

_"Lucien and I—not the Lucien you knew to be your father in disguise, but the real Lucien—have been particularly interested in the past few minutes, and we feel pity for you."_

I don't want your pity. Keep it. Take everything else with you, too, like my dignity and my hope and my dreams and my determination and my sword and my dead cat and my tears and my despair and my soul. Take my advice, too. I don't use it anyway.

_"This battle that you are fighting with Kaos the Deadly—it is not over."_

No shit, genius.

_"But you can't just do it alone. That is why, on the consent of all the other Elemental Leaders, I have left the realm purely to come aid you in your time of need. Death came too quickly and too soon for Mr. Garmadon, and at the hand of saving you, might I add." _

Kai wished he was dead. Lloyd was dead. Why couldn't he be dead, too?

_"That is why we have decided to revive him in order to help you carry out your duties to killing Kaos and ending this destruction once and for all."_

_…_

All Jay saw was a glowing orb of light, but it hovered near Kai's head like a frickin' fairy out of a kids' movie or something. This whole _thing _was like it was out of a kid movie. Almost way too good to actually be true. The glowing orb of light danced near Kai, its light bright, and the voice coming out of it very, very echoey. Jay was already weirded out that there was a giant ball of light that could speak Ninjean, but the promise of bringing Lloyd back from the dead? Not that that hadn't been done plenty of times already, but were these "Elemental Leaders" the ones that kept reviving Jay's friends?

…

Bring…back…Lloyd?

Kai slowly raised his head, the numbness inside getting thorny. He found instead of the actual embodied Zara a glowing ball of light that hurt to look at, and it bobbed and weaved beside him. Kai's face, drenched in tears, had back-glare from the bright light.

_"But be warned, Ninja: We are not bringing back anyone else from the dead after this, no matter who it is and how important they are. Noble acts are generous, but the Elemental Leaders can't sustain the reviving of a soul any more after this. This is your final chance. If any of you die after this, you're stuck with us in the realm for eternity." _

Zara's, erm, "_body" _bounced in the air, moving over Lloyd's wound. Her power slowly sank towards the issue that had killed Lloyd and taken him from Kai, disappearing inside of his body as something magical happened within. Kai felt no change in Lloyd's body from the sinking of a giant ball of light into his abdomen, but he knew that she knew what she was doing.

By magic, there was a disgusting noise that Kai was not going to explain, and a second afterwards, the rise of a metal bullet from the hole in Kai's beloved made everyone gasp. Zara, ever present but not visible, threw aside the blood-covered killer. Kai stared. The wound was _gone._

A light began to glow from inside Lloyd's chest. A light that radiated like the soft edges of Zara's orb, gently gleaming with life and potency, took its time 'reviving' Lloyd, as Kai was promised. Minutes passed, and doubt lingered. Maybe this wasn't actually happening. Maybe Kai was hallucinating with grief—

The light dimmed. And then it—and Zara—were gone.

The wait was brutal. Kai stared at Lloyd for what felt like hours, waiting for a sign of life, for the twitch of a finger, for the breath of first reincarnation. He held his hand in anticipation. Excitement and hope and torture all tasted the same in his mouth, but Kai had never been so impatient before. It was like waiting for the news about your pregnant wife and if she survived the birth or not, pacing back and forth, but Kai was no pacer, and he'd rather hold onto Lloyd's hand tightly in the wait. Everyone gathered round, all excluding Seiko (who probably still was feeling the effects of the Void) to see if Zara was playing a terrible prank on them or if Lloyd really _was _coming back.

If he didn't come back, Kai was certain he'd hang himself.

He held their clasped hands to his lips, tears still shedding. "C'mon, baby," he whispered, pushing locks of golden hair out of Lloyd's face tenderly. "C'mon."

He didn't even want to know what the others were thinking.

It seemed like it never was going to happen. Kai started to feel disappointed. He wondered if Sensei had any spare rope hanging anywhere—

_Cough, cough, cough. Moan. _

Everyone held their breath.

Lloyd's shoulder's rolled back, a satisfying _pop _coming from one of them, and his hand easing its way out of Kai's happy-to-please grip. Lloyd's face squinched just enough for his hand to come up and rub his nose, his eyes yet having to reopen, with his body shifting uncomfortably on the tar. "Ow," he commented, running a hand over his hair. "That…hurt."

"Lloyd!" Everyone cried, like they always did, and there were so many smiles. He was alive. He was _himself. _

Misako looked so happy that her son was alive that through her tears she grew more tears. Lloyd pushed himself up on both elbows, and finally, his eyes opened, revealing the most beautiful pair of eyes that Kai had _ever seen _in his entire life. They may have been the same as they were when he died, but to Kai, it was the best early-Christmas present ever. He stared in relief, happiness, adoration, and love at the groggy Ninja who stared at everyone, trying to figure out what to do.

Then his eyes fell on Kai.

He had a strange glint in his eyes, Lloyd did. Kai didn't blame him for looking differently towards his previous best friend than he did on a normal day, since Kai had just kissed him and admitted his darkest secret to the guy he'd been crushing on for a year now, but Lloyd had died sort of before Kai could say it, so did he technically hear it? Or was he looking at Kai funny just to look at him funny?

Kai bowed his head, almost shameful.

"I feel like I just got sucked into a vacuum cleaner," Lloyd admitted, throat dry. "And then beat up by Chuck Norris."

Cole, Jay, and Misako chuckled, but Kai felt bad. He was happy that his best friend was back, really, truly, but…thinking about how Lloyd had just looked at Kai, like he'd grown three heads… Maybe his choice to tell Lloyd how he felt was a bad one.

Misako hugged her son. "I love you so much," she whispered in his ear.

Kai felt hollow.

_Of course this never would've gone anywhere, _Kai thought, a popped balloon. _I'm his friend. And now, I might not even _be_ his friend. Lloyd doesn't…like guys. _I_ do. _

Kai felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see Cole and Jay looking down on him, both apologetic, but not pitiful. He gave a weak smile. He looked back at Zane.

Zane was snoring. Soundly. Happily. Sleepily.

Had he _really _lain down to take a nap?

"Uh…" Lloyd said, getting to his wobbly feet with his mother's help. Kai stood a moment after him, still feeling a little weird. It was exhilarating to tell someone you loved them, but it was not supposed to be in the way that Kai had told Lloyd, and that made everything a little bit worse. He felt guilty, and also lightly humiliated, and happier than the happiest person in the world because his best friend was back. But while the smiling faces of Jay and Cole reassured Lloyd, they couldn't make Kai drop the feeling that he'd just screwed something horrible up. "Sooooo…" Lloyd rubbed the back of his head, one eye shut, and pointedly resolved inner conflict by not looking at Kai. "Anybody got an extra shirt?"

* * *

**I cried. :'l**

**I really did. **

**Go have a *sniffle* fantabulous day-slash-night! *walks away bawling***

**~Kairi**


	69. Chapter 69

**EdgeChronicles01: **I'm sorry for the difficulty of middle school. I know how tough it is to go through that mega change. It was like that for me, and not to intimidate you, but also with 9th grade, but that's because where I live, 9th grade is in a brand new building (aside from the 5th-8th grade building across town) and it's on its own, rather than being in the same building than 10th-11th graders. So I know what you're feeling, and I'm sorry you have to go through that. I pray that you get more comfortable soon! Love, Kairi

* * *

**CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE:  
**Sick Love

"Welp, as long as Kayus was demolished by his Original, there's a fat chance we'll be seeing _him _again," Jace said as he and Fang strolled down a long, white hall with off-white carpet as their regal appearance, finding the commons area to Kaos's overly-large Pandemonium Bastion castle at the end. They took their time getting there, because though the loss of Ash wouldn't last very long, they had permanently lost Kayus. The spell that brought the Bizarro back only had parameters that extended to being killed by someone _other _than their Original; the loophole to their infinite re-spawning was that if they were conquered and defeated by their Original, they would be destroyed. It worked like that for _all _Bizarro, and not just the Ninja's Bizarro, which operably would include Maya Kiko and her doppelganging human. Jace was no pro on which came first, but whoever of them was the Original would be able to defeat the other by simply engaging in hand-to-hand combat and winning with a final blow. And vice versa. Bizarro was really the twisted, evil nickname for doppelgangers who joined the Dark Side, at least in the witchy world.

"Unless we all die in the same horrible fate, I can presume he's a goner for good." Fang didn't sound the least bit penitent. Fang usually was devoid of showing his inner feelings, which either came from his Original or from some personal quirk he developed. Jace found it hard to keep up a conversation with the introvert and continued down the hallway with him at bay in silence, an ocean crashing on the shore without any idea as to what was lurking in the shadows beneath.

They found the commons decked out in white leather couches, a throw rug, and a high, stained glass window with the image of Hades (or Elathan) on either side of the narrow wall across from the hallway. The outskirt was a circular shape, with doorways leading into four different passageways out of the room itself, not including the open hallway coming into the room. The high ceiling was home to the cable of a chandelier, dangling white crystals over the unused gathering area below. This was, not only as referred as the commons, the Heart of Pandemonium Bastion. From here, you could get to _any _place in the Bastion, if you knew the blueprints like Jace did, although he doubted anyone could. He liked to study the blue and white chalk over the paper and find all the little flukes and escape routes there were, and Kaos seemed not to give a damn about whether or not his magically-conjured Bizarro knew the magically-conjured bastion like the back of his hand. It was almost like, staring at the blue paper, a game of _Where's Waldo. _Jace would name off a room and it would be like a scavenger hunt trying to find the place he imagined, but only recently had the game become boring when he had memorized every room, every hallway, every secret passage, and so on that the fortress had to offer him.

Pandemonium Bastion was in a _darkspace _between the two realms of Earth: the human realm where the living walked, and the Elemental Realm just a Jetstream through the wretched continuum that was simply called _death. _(Pointedly excluding the realm of the Underworld, which was not of the two realms of Earth.) The only way to reach the Bastion would be to use a molecule-distorter machine that Jace had already figured up the blueprints to that would, in its travel to picking up your protons, neutrons and electrons, would pause between dimensions as though there was a system failure and drop yourself off precisely in the correct portion of the _darkspace _that Kaos had established his hideout in. Or, if you chose referendum to do it the easy way, you followed Danielle's elixir that would "teleport" you here, but that wasn't as fun.

Fang flopped on one of the chairs, closing his eyes. Jace took his time sitting down. When they'd come here through the distortion site where Danielle had opened up an invisible portal in the human plane that would transfer them back to Pandemonium, they'd found the citadel as empty as it usually was, except for the maids frolicking around and "taking care of things." They'd passed Elomne von Teufel, the weird humanoid Shadow Dancer who Kaos kept in close contact for some funky reason, with their eyes down and faces particularly forestalled. Elomne was _called _a Shadow Dancer, but Jace saw no resemblance between those dog-nosed idiots and Elomne. He looked way too _human _to be a Dancer. Still… Kaos had human hands, and he supposed that cross-breeding was the culprit of turning a Shadow Dancer to the hand of a gene telling their DNA that they needed to resemble a human. Danielle said this was a very common trait among Shadow Dancers. To look human, he meant. It was predatory to their heritage in order to draw in victims so they could have their souls expended by the Shadow Dancers and their quenchless taste for humanity. Danielle also told him that the humans the Dancers were most afraid of was the ones who turned _off _their humanity, because they wouldn't cower or be drawn to the creatures, but rather have an easier time vanquishing their doggish butts.

Fang groaned and flipped open his eyes. He stood. "I'm showering," he announced. "All that sweat and being tossed around is making me feel dirty."

"Sure." Jace rubbed his nose.

"You comin' to the bath, or are you gonna sit here and stink up the place with your stench?" asked Fang, but the grin in his eyes was all jokes.

Jace itched his arm. "I think I'll stay here."

Fang shrugged. "Suit yourself. Tell your girlfriend hi for me."

"She's not my girlfriend," Jace said, perhaps too quickly. Fang smirked and disappeared without denying that, but both of them knew that there was a relationship going on between Jace and his not-girlfriend, and that in itself was something more than what he used to have, Jace awaited her arrival in the commons long after Fang dissipated the air to his maid-provided sponge bath (don't let the "showering" part fool you,) checking his watch several times, wishing that she was here with him. Everything made a lot more sense when she was here, and his head was plenty clearer when she came into his line of vision, but her ignorance to show up in the commons was unbearable. She only knew the place as a straightshot from the front gate into the commons (from there she was able to find her way around) so automatically, this is where she had to come if she wanted to get anywhere. Either she'd beat Jace here and was already somewhere else, or she was taking longer than he expected to come home.

Jace closed his eyes. He was tired, but he'd wait for her.

He didn't know how much time had passed when he felt a cool hand stroking his cheek. Jace's eyelids fluttered open, finding the blurred image of golden hair and a smiling, bright eyed face looking at him. He adjusted to the world outside of his dreams slowly, but when he came to, he found _her_ sitting there before him in the chair across from his own that Fang had inhabited, last he was awake. He jumped into a more acceptable posture. The Mistress giggled.

"Tired?" Danielle smirked, and Jace blushed.

"I was waiting for you," he explained. She smiled.

In her older, human body, Danielle had become more of a woman, and her face was even more beautiful aged than it was when she was a robot. Jace was glad that she now had the pride and joy of being a natural mortal again instead of forced into her hand with robotism. He slipped his hand into hers, hanging in the space between them.

"Sorry I took so long," she said. "I went to the monastery to get a few things and ended up getting held up."

"By what?" he asked, frowning.

"An annoying robot named Akamatsu Yuki," she explained, rolling her eyes flippantly. It wasn't directed at Jace, but at whatever this Akamatsu-robot had about him. "He was accusing me of being too shady and running off with potions that aren't mine."

"What did you do?" He stood up, her hand still in his.

"Nothing," she said exasperatedly, and Jace frowned. She stood up with him and brushed a curl out of her eyes. "I wasn't going to _hurt _him. I just told him that I had things I needed to take care of and left."

"He didn't stop you?" As much as Jace wanted to believe that, he knew that a robot with the gall to confront Danielle about her intentions wouldn't just let her skirt into the daylight without any kind of prompt. Danielle meekly grabbed the front of Jace's shirt, sashaying a little closer to him, and teased him with a smile, playing with his jacket rims and biting her lip like a nervous schoolgirl. Jace knew, however, that Danielle was anything _but _nervous, and looked towards her long, dark lashes with mascara pulled evenly over them, her crystal-like blue eyes, and brushed her hair out of her face.

"If he did," Danielle murmured, using Jace's shirt to guide him closer to her mouth, "I totally kicked his ass."

He kissed her. He'd always been more attached to the Mistress than the other three Bizarro; he'd only begun their romance shortly after he first looked at her, falling for her without delay. Knowing full well that her marriage to Elomne was a failure and was more of a distant friendship than an actual peace of matrimony, Jace was free to fall distantly for her, share all the kisses he wanted, and never get his face shoved in by a fist connected to Elomne. Whether that was his own or by hire. Jace kissed her fully and colorfully, flaunting his love for her through the whole commons. He continued to fall for her until finally, with both of them desperate for each other's attention, Danielle suggested his bedroom would be nice and they found each other slinking down the hallway towards the place that he almost could call "his own."

…

Veridiea was, by nature, one of Kaos's many hired supplements for his source of life force. When he needed strength, he usually turned to the nearest maid, but when he needed more, he fell into what was called, in facetious terms, "Veridiea's Lair." He kept her in that solid room full of all beauty products that money and Compulsion could buy, with the expensive irons for hair and canisters of eye makeup, all over the long wall that held the biggest mirror that Veridiea wanted, on top of the counter-and-sink combination that was all white, like the rest of Pandemonium Bastion. She slept in this room on her bed, bathed in the open-faced shower, and dressed with all the fashionable clothes awaiting her body in the walk-in closet that Kaos dreamed up for her. She had everything that a woman could ever want, every beauty item known to man—but she was never allowed outside the room.

That was just the way it worked.

Covered in Kaos's cloak, now that his means of power were back, he carried Seiko down the hallway towards Veridiea's Lair wearing Nicholas's face again. This was the face that Veridiea preferred to see when she was visited by her "employer." He found her elegant, golden-knobbed door by the map in his heart and sufficed himself with a strange knock of his shoulder to the door. He couldn't exactly open it with his hand—if he let go of Seiko, he'd drop her on the floor and it wouldn't be pretty.

Veridiea opened the door. She was a small brunette with wedge heels and skinny jeans taped to her legs, and some salmon shirt that didn't compliment her figure. Her eyes were heavily doused in makeup but her dark hair was curled perfectly, and her lips were stained pink. To everyone else, she looked normal. But when you looked hard enough, you saw her flashing green cat eyes and the tiny sprinkle of pale freckles across her cheekbones and nose. That wasn't the kicker, though. The kicker was that when she tucked back her hair, she showed you the full beauty of her pointed ears.

Not elvish.

Nymph-ish.

She was adorable, but Kaos would never say that to anyone aloud. Kaos raised the drugged body of Seiko in his arms. "I need you," he said.

"Mmmmmm." Veridiea stepped backwards, revealing the girlish white room inside. He stepped in with Seiko in his arms. She was barely heavy. "What do you need?" asked Veridiea, shutting the door behind him. She skirted closer to him to look at her next victim, childish eyes roving over the sights of the plain girl in Kaos's grasp. "Her complexion is very dry," commented the beautyist.

"I need you," he said, walking towards the small salon chair that she had in front of her giant mirror. Kaos looked at the illusion fakist of himself standing in the mirror, holding Yin, and avoided looking at his own reflection. He set her covered body into the cushion as Veridiea used her foot to pump a lever on the bar of the chair, lifting the seat higher so that Seiko's face would be even with hers. Veridiea grabbed a bottle off the counter, squirted some creamy liquid onto her hand, and began dabbing some of it onto Seiko's face. She listened to his request. "I want something sensual," he told her. "Something that sparks my interest. Not too much of this gunk on her face"—he gestured to all the makeup containers strewn about—"but something that makes her look better than she does now. I also need it done soon."

"Dressing?" Veridiea asked, already hard at work with Seiko's face. She grabbed some sort of facial brush.

"Nothing but your finest lace," Kaos sang. He exited the room. There, he told the nearest maids to prepare his room. They scampered off to fulfill his request. _My provisions, _he thought, _are almost finished…now all I need is Danielle._

_…_

Dani was hard at work knotting the belt around her robe as she scurried down the hall after Kaos's quick pace, making sure that she wasn't showing anywhere other than on the red heat over her cheeks. It had been humiliating enough to have yourself walked in on—_purposely—_when a certain villain didn't want to _wait. _To have him acknowledge what she'd just been doing was even worse to hear. Her bare feet hit the cold tile as the scoundrel, in all his glory, walked ahead of her with no intention of waiting for her. She grumbled under her breath and caught up with him.

He'd been _talking? _She never knew.

"…sort of elixir that ages the body nine months," he said, without noticing she caught up to him. Danielle frowned but listened. "No more, no less. I want it to be injected by needle, and I'll be needing it quite soon; I don't care what you have to do to finish it in time." Kaos stopped at the door of the room Dani created her witches' brews in, pushing open the door and laying a hand to her back, shoving her inside. Dani whipped around to look at him, startled at his bruteness. Kaos's—er, Nicholas's—face was dark. "Just get it done." The door slammed shut behind him, leaving Dani and her herbs all alone to figure out the mystery for themselves.

* * *

**Yes. So. Um. Go have an awesome day/night!**


	70. Chapter 70

**I dedicate the top half of this chapter to EdgeChronicles01, to help a little with your school-coping.  
:-)**

* * *

**CHAPTER SEVENTY:  
**All This Time?

Kai hated moping, but he had to admit, he was guiltier than hell of doing it.

They'd returned home not too long ago from the challenging conquest of getting home by vehicles—he wasn't even going to explain that—knowing that he'd let Kaos get away with the Shadow Key, and that Lloyd had a hard time looking at him when he talked. He felt like he'd just made an ugly mistake of telling Lloyd just how he felt about him, scaring the poor kid into being unable to MAKE EYE CONTACT with the guy who was crushing on him from afar before, and now actually crushing on him up front cause EVERYONE KNEW NOW.

Diagnosis of Zane's random naptime: Yuki said it was a reaction to a heat wave. He started waking up close to when they came back to the monastery, but when his mumbling was still incoherent and reminded Kai of the time he once got buzzed, Yuki hauled him off to the infirmary to do further observation.

Yuki _also _said that Lloyd should take a bubble bath to help him ease out the tension of the evening's events, when it was actually not that late into the day. It was actually only twelve in the afternoon. That's where Lloyd disappeared to.

What was everyone else doing? Noel was happily accepted into the monastery (more on how Kai felt about THAT later) by Wu and Garmadon (who won't tell anybody where they went?) and served food that he could shovel into his face by Rikku, who didn't attend that meeting with Kaos. Jay immediately ran to find Nya and Rie, who were bonding in the first living room (wherever the hell that was) to probably tell her about remembering everything. Misako and Damon were being a relieved, teary couple, happy to see each other, and…Kai really didn't stare at them, so he couldn't explain that to you. Cole towed his sleepy sister to her bedroom. When he came back, he and Kai told Wu and Damon about what happened with Kaos, and there was dark auras at the fact that Kaos had the Shadow Key, and Misako explained that he didn't, and blah blah blah. Kai wasn't into the discussion, so, leaving the experts on the supernatural (including his little brother, who offered a lot of consolement to their theories about Shadow Dancers and hell) he went towards his bedroom, still fried from using his true potential and all the emotional outbringing.

This was too much.

He found his bedroom door as he left it, ready to sink into the depression of his bed, close his eyes, and find sleep as his new best friend, knowing he'd just lost his real one. His hand closed on the handle.

"Hey, uh, Kai?"

Kai looked towards the voice he'd know anywhere. Lloyd was poking his head out his door, hair still dry, like he hadn't taken that bubble bath that Yuki suggested. He shucked his lips to the side in that expression people made in an awkwardly sad moment, unsure of what to say. His eyes only rested on Kai's for a brief second before asking, "Can I talk to you for a minute?" in a weird voice.

Kai looked at the door handle, biting his lip. This needed to be resolved, just so maybe Kai could get a feel as to what Lloyd was thinking and what exactly they'd do from here—if Lloyd still wanted Kai in his life or not. Imagine one day finding that your best friend—a male to your male—was so deeply in love with you that he'd gladly hang himself if you died? While technically inside you were only, what, eleven? That would scare the shit out of Kai if he was in Lloyd's place, and blaming him for not wanting to be his friend anymore would be cruel. Kai would want to distance himself as far from the problem as he could get.

He let go of the door handle and moved to shove his hands in the pockets that _thankfully _this ninja apparel came with. "Sure," he said, voice barely above a whisper, and walked to Lloyd. The Green Ninja took a step back, holding open the door in a gateway to either the break of something beautiful or the demise of Kai's heart, and which be real was weighing heavily on his heart. Kai stepped inside, and with the shut of Lloyd's door, his fate was chosen.

Lloyd stood, back to the door, arms crossed over his chest. He hadn't changed clothes at all, except for the light gray T-shirt he had put on. He must not have taken a calming bath, then. His lips were pressed in a line, but not an unhappy one, more of one that just didn't know where to go from here. He looked at the floor where Kai's feet were. The minutes of muteness streamed on, and Kai felt more and more uncomfortable standing in the middle of Lloyd's room, entering the dragon's lair but never quite seeing if he made it out or not. Kai's sigh was the only thing that was heard over the soft breathing of Lloyd's lungs. _I need to say something first, _thought the ninja. He threw out his hands to either side and let them flop back to his sides, hitting his thighs with a deadened slap. He looked at the floor, too. "I'm an open book," he said finally. "I don't have anything to lose anymore."

Lloyd's eyes flickered up to his, but when he found it hard to keep contact, he looked at Kai's nose instead. "What's that supposed to mean?" He asked quietly.

Kai ran his hand over his hair. "I…" He shrugged, an act of giving up. He sat back on Lloyd's bed. "I don't have anything else," he said. "Whatever you want to ask me…go ahead. Say it. I won't lose anything by hearing it."

Kai's eyes were dull. Lloyd did that thing with his lips again, but it only lasted a second. "So you've…" He cleared his throat, looking away from Kai at the comforter. "Been…in love with me?"

Kai's eyes stung a little. "Yeah."

"Like…_love?" _

"Yeah."

Lloyd nodded, pursing his lips. He blinked rapidly at the light fixture. _Fending off tears, _Kai realized with a start. He clasped his hands together between his legs to stop them from shaking. "How long?" Lloyd barely managed.

"Since you turned older."

Lloyd nodded again. He looked down again, shifting feet. Everything in Kai's life was angled towards this point now, every piece of his being, every step of the rest of his life—it was all coming down to this. Where he'd go from here. Lloyd was choosing his fate.

The kid had issues coping with that. "Did you like me…_before _that?"

Kai licked his lips, feeling his throat uncannily dry. "As a person, yes," Kai answered. "But if I'd liked you then I would've been classified as a pedophile, so."

Lloyd didn't laugh. He leaned his weight against the door, tilting back his head, and taking a deep breath, the exhale leaving him through puffed cheeks, he asked his next question. "So it only started after I turned older?"

"You became more…" Kai searched for the right word, knowing that he had no more boundaries. If Lloyd wanted to know the truth, then Kai would give him nothing _but _the truth, as much as it hurt to say. "_Attractive _to me than the twerpy little kid who hid my underwear all the time."

Lloyd choked out the next part quickly. "Does that mean that you _fantasized _about me?" He asked, practically gagging on the words. He looked a little deranged to hear the answer.

"I…" Kai thought about it. "I didn't have _fantasies _about you."

"You sound like you're implying something else."

Kai lifted his shoulders and docilely dropped them. "I thought about you a lot," he admitted, cheeks warming. "And I thought about how happy I'd be if you loved me back. But I knew that was never going to happen."

"Did you ever think inappropriately about me?"

Kai paused. "Not…exactly."

Lloyd's eyes were full of tears. He looked a little horrified, vomit rising in his throat, ready to be spilled if Kai said any more. But he wasn't about to let Lloyd walk away without hearing the whole truth. He needed to know everything. As weird as it might be to listen to.

"So did you ever…You know what, never mind." Lloyd gave a dry chuckle, and buried his face in his hands. "I don't even know why I'm asking for details. This is…"

"What is it?"

Lloyd didn't answer. He took several deep breaths, refusing to speak words that voiced his thoughts, probably out of his incapable heart trying to understand how this weird situation could be fixed. Kai felt guiltier than anything. He bowed his head. "I understand if you don't want to be friends anymore," he choked. A tear skidded down his nose and onto his pants. "I wouldn't want to be friends with me, either."

"Not be _friends _with you?" In disbelief, Lloyd raised his head, hands still cupped. His mouth was open enough for his eyes to speak a thousand words. Incredulity was among them.

Kai wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "No," he said, cracking. "It'll probably feel too weird for you to continue being best friends with some…gay fag." Tears fell out of his eyes at saying the words. He thought he'd cried himself dry, but he guessed wrong.

"Gosh, Kai," Lloyd snapped, startling him. Kai's head snapped up at the harsh tone. Lloyd looked not only disbelieving, but shocked, like he couldn't believe he just said that. Kai's shoulders sagged. "Don't _say _that!"

"It's true," Kai said, tears rolling down his cheeks. He felt so empty that he couldn't even look up at Lloyd because it hurt to move. "I am. That's what they call people like me." His lip bobbed, and he began to feel frustrated and angry with himself. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I did this to you. I feel like a huge dick for doing this… I just totally screwed your brain up by messing with you to where all the stress you already have is probably fattened by my fat ass fat fatty fat mc-fatter-frickin-son fat idiocricy of stupidness that's so fat that I just totally frickin'…I'm so sorry. So sorry." Kai looked up, pleading with not only his eyes and heart but his vocabulary that didn't consist of much other than the word _fat _compilated into some strange gathering. Lloyd's gaze of intense I'm-trying-to-understand-this was making even Kai's brain hurt. Or maybe that was all the crying. "I promise, we can pretend this never happened." He cut his hand through the air like breaking apart two pieces to the puzzle, defracting this part of Kai's life from that one. "We can go on living, and we might not be totally okay like we were before, but we can pretend, right?" Now he sounded desperate. "Let's just do that. Because…I don't want to lose you. Even if you hate me, it's better than losing you."

Lloyd's stare turned quizzical. The majority of Kai's speech had to be as lame as it sounded coming out of his stupid mouth, and probably made Lloyd lose one million brain cells at the lame-osity of how stupid Kai was. It was stupid to even think, for one second, that admitting his love for Lloyd was a good idea. But in a way, Kai hadn't even been thinking when he said it. He was just frantic, and that ended up coming out with the fear of losing Lloyd forever. He needed to duct tape his mouth shut next time.

"Jesus, Kai," Lloyd breathed, shaking his head in awe. "You really are an idiot."

_Yeah, I know, _Kai was about to say, but in the two seconds it took him to say it, Lloyd had already crossed the room in a duo of steps, grabbed him by the sides of his jaw, and with surprising strength from such a tenderly lissome person, snatched Kai's face eagerly towards his, overwhelming his own mouth with the hotheaded fire ninja's. Kai's face was overwritten with heat, and his brain refused to calculate with the feel of Lloyd's lips working against his own, with the way Lloyd so lusciously slid his hands back to tangle in Kai's hair, and how he was slowly bringing up his knees onto the bed on either side of Kai, sitting in his lap. His mouth was soft, and in his (technical) first kiss, Lloyd treated like a professional. Kai's heart went from empty to full in a matter of seconds. Thundering against Lloyd's, Kai tried to figure out what this could mean. Lloyd loved him back?

Lloyd's mouth barely detached from his for the second it took to take a deep breath. Before Kai could kill his lightheadedness, Lloyd's lips were already shoved back against his, his breath inflating Kai's lungs. He tumbled backwards onto the bed and, with the Green Ninja's hands spread over the comforter on either side of Kai's head as he kissed him, fell victim to the rapture of being in love.

…

Waiting for all three of his requests by the people he ruled to be fullfilled, Kaos was so bored that he found torturing sensitive people fun.

Kai didn't look like the type of person who was sensitive, but if he wasn't sensitive, then Kaos never would've been able to over throw his mind. From leaning against the doorjamb of the bathroom stall, Kaos watched Kai singlehandedly be overawed by love _in his own bedroom _to some person who actually wasn't even there, watched him feel the fake kisses run down his neck, the tug at the waistband of his pants. Kaos plucked at a piece of lint on his shirt while he listened to the sound of Kai moaning Lloyd's name.

Lloyd wasn't even in the room. He was in the bathtub a few doors down. Kaos, however, thought that this whole scheme was _delicious _and needed to at least contribute a little bit more pain to this whole scandal. Imagine how hilarious it would be when they both woke in the morning, and Kai went in for a hello kiss to the _real _Lloyd, who never went through this incident at all!

DEAR ELATHAN that would be the best prank EVER. Kaos chuckled to himself and flicked away the niggling lint. Kai groaned seductively from the bed.

It reminded Kaos what he had to get back to. He sighed, and supposed he'd let this go as far as it needed to go…just not with him surveying the damage. Kaos pulled a small, round orb out of the satchel at his waist, and from the packet he took two, just for the trip home. He popped both into his mouth. _To Pandemonium Bastion it is, _he thought, and disappeared, leaving Kai to kiss the hell out of his fake, nonexistent air boyfriend. Kaos snickered through time-space. Hey, at least it had to be better than a blow-up doll…

* * *

**I'm so mean. ;.;**

**I get even meaner in the next 2 chapters...the rising action is coming...**

**I can't even tell you to have an awesome day/night bc I probably just crushed your feelings. *Sawee!***


	71. Chapter 71

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE:  
**Banana Mush

"He's so mean," complained Danielle, tucking her hair behind her ear and finishing up the last of the aging potion. It had taken a lot of Grimoire-consulting—you know, that giant book that told her about every spell the witches ever created—and searching in her tiny ossuary full of things to locate the correct ingredients she'd need for creating the first-ever aging spell that aged according to a timeline. It was hard to find herbs in her shelves that had anything to do with aging, and the majority of the ones she _did _have were _anti-_aging. In the end, Dani ended up picking a tuft of Cry (a type of plant that bloomed, then died three days later) for aging, nine Ambierose seeds for their famous symbolizing of months, Nettle for ridding the body of toxins (as this mix may end up being,) a hint of Chamomile for its calming tincture, and finally, a dash of pearl to assist childbirth. Kaos's _main _request was complete. She kept the crushed up fluid in a tea-like substance, tucking it off to the side in a bowl.

Jace, ever the gentleman to come running after his lady, was standing at her side, helping her crush up a portion of the next mixture. His hands were slogged with the fruit that made Danielle's tongue swell when she ate it: banana. He mushed it up as she politely entreated, while she messed with Bistort root. "He's definitely something," Jace agreed, squishing the banana into a bowl and grimacing when it clung to his fingers. Dani laughed at him and gave him a napkin.

Someone might wonder if because she loved Jace, she also loved Jay.

They were two different people. She could _never _love Jay (he was too squeamish for her profession and didn't take anything too seriously) the way that she'd fallen for Jace. As a couple, Jace and Dani were so much alike that it made the idea of, when she'd helped Kaos create them four months before the Ninja knew they'd been brought back, true love seem real again. What she'd had with Elomne was childish infatuation with a gorgeous man who turned out to be trouble. But Jace…he was real. He loved her for who she was, not what she had. That's the way it should be. And he may have been a lot younger than her, but with the way he spoke and talked and acted, the only thing that would've given it away was his appearance.

"He's _mean," _Danielle said. "I wish he appreciated the work I did a little more. It's not easy mushing up bananas and tearing apart roots and grinding up carrots into shavings and cat-tail and whatever the hell else I named off that list." She gestured to the yellow notepad she'd scribbled her notes on.

"You can't expect him to be nice," Jace pointed out. "He _is _evil. And you'd think that knowing that would make it a little less irritating, but it doesn't." He took to splitting cedar for her while she peeled apart the Bistort.

Dani sighed, shaking her head and raising her eyebrows at the stupid mix. She added it to the same small bowl that the banana was in, stirring it up with a stick to combine the carrot wheed, banana, and Bistort. "All I know is I can't continue to do this if he doesn't appreciate me more," she said. "I came into this because I had to pay off the rest of Caroline's stupid sentence with these assholish Dancers, and I'm the only living member of her family." She rolled her eyes, angry with her stupid sister.

"What does living have to do with it?" Jace asked. He sprinkled the cedar onto the pile of yellow banana in the bowl, also dappled with orange and cream colored shavings.

"With supernatural 'business agreements,' I guess you could say, you're giving your certain amount of devotion to whomever," she said, dropping chickweed on top of the cedar. She began mixing it up. "If for some reason you die, you've already signed on to having a member of your family take your place until the sentence you bargained for is complete."

"What about your dad?" Jace asked.

"My father drank poison so he wouldn't have to once again serve the living dead," Dani said, trying not to let her sadness show. She set aside the bowl and ran through her list to make sure she got everything. "I buried him so the Shadow Dancers wouldn't seek him and revive him for his assistance in building vehicles and deadly weapons."

"Pretty much offering yourself instead."

"Yes."

"Isn't that just as dangerous?"

Dani couldn't answer, looking down at her list for the second mixture. _…banana, Bistort, carrot wheed, and chickweed for fertility and love. Cat-tail for lust. Now all I need to do is put the Carnelian stone on a chain, and I'm done. _She walked towards her shelves, and pulling out one of the time-worn drawers, found the stonekeep. Tens of little squares housing one stone each (except for those that have been used and were no longer there) were inside of the drawer, like tiny boxes for each one of them, but the walls for the boxes were all attached. Almost as if it were an expanded tic-tac-toe board. Dani searched with her fingers hovering over the drawer, wiggling as she searched for the Carnelian stone.

_Aha! _From years of becoming familiar with gems, Dani easily picked out the oval brownish-red mineral from the bunch and shut the drawer. It already had a tiny, circular hook screwed into it so all Dani had to do was slip through the chain. She gave a breath. "Done," she announced, and at that exact same time, Kaos came barging through the door.

"Are you done?" He demanded. _No appreciation. No thank you WHATSOEVER._

Dani passed him the tray with the bowl of the fluid in it, and the one with her food-like mush, and the necklace. In his hands, he stared. She pointed to the fluid. "Pour that into your needle," she said. She moved onto the banana mush. "Feed that to her before anything happens. She's probably hungry, and that will only boost your chances." Lastly, the necklace. "Make her wear that."

"Why the hell would I do that? It's ugly."

Danielle sighed as patiently as she could forge. "It increases physical energy, as well as stimulates the…sexual regions. It also gets rid of the more annoying traits, which by that I mean the negative emotions so she won't be a pain in your ass."

Kaos frowned. "It's hideous, but it'll do."

"Man up, Princess!" said Jace from the background. Danielle smiled back at him. "Not everything is going to be just the way you want it."

"Speak like that again, and I personally will hold you down while Jay Walker punches you into dust, and you'll never see your little Dani again." Kaos whirled. "Resume your previous activities." The door slammed shut.

Dani sighed, wandering into Jace's arms. She pushed her face into his chest. "See?" She said, hugging him tightly. She listened to the sounds of his heartbeat. He kissed the top of her head gently. "No 'thank you.' He really _is _the world's biggest asshole."


	72. Chapter 72

*****WARNING!: IF YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE 13, BE CAUTIOUS THROUGH THIS CHAPTER. THIS CHAPTER HAS SUGGESTION OF PAST SEXUAL CONTENT. _(I'm not going to call it by the P-ography word.)_ PLEASE DON'T BE OFFENDED, AND IF THAT OFFENDS YOU, I HAVE PUT ASTERISKS ( THE LITTLE STARS LIKE THIS *) AROUND THE AREA THAT SUGGESTS IT. YOU ARE WELCOME TO SKIP PAST THAT PART. WHEN YOU SEE THE SECOND SET OF ASTERISKS, THE PART YOU NEED TO BE WARY OF IS OVER. YOU DON'T NEED TO READ THAT PART ANYWAY, YOU WILL NOT BE MISSING ANYTHING TOO IMPORTANT! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!**

**NOTE TO ALL READERS: there are names of girls listed off in here. You'll find out why later, but Please, if You have an OC of this name, don't be offended. We picked out the most common names seen on (Ninjago) OCs and placed them there. There is no meaning towards your OC or the OC of someone you know; it does not suggest that it is talking about _YOUR_ OC. So don't become offended. Thank you. You have also been warned.**

* * *

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO:  
**Kaos's True Face  
_~Yin_

_"Just a little more, and you're finished with your supper," _the voice of a distant echo rang in my ears, bouncing off the walls of my skull oleaginously and taking over the perceptive ratio of how exactly my mind works when compared to a sleeping car motor and an overridden hard drive, making it practically impossible for my eyes to open on command. I'm kind of stuck in that world where you're half in, half out of unconsciousness, you know, the place where you can hear but you're practically dead in your sleep, so someone could talk about their plans to stab you to your death and you'd be all, "Oh, gee!" but never be able to act on it. So basically what I just said is that I'm a blister sitting on the bench waiting to be hacked off by an axe and could never actually stop that axe from coming down on me and slicing out my puss-filled organism. Even if the person in the room with me wasn't actually telling me they were going to kill me, my point still stands. I am in a dangerous, dangerous place.

My memories of the last time I was awake are extremely foggy, but there's still a light in me that remembers I was kidnapped by Witch Bitch (no longer Pretty Princess,) Bitchazoid (which is Maru's nickname) and my personal favorite, Psychobitch. (Hint of starcasm there.) (Yes, I did say _star_casm.) I didn't forget the part that so misconceptionally mentioned that I was "Kaos's property." Whoever the hell set that up needed to know that I wasn't for sale in the first place and couldn't be owned by anyone but _myself. _I was angry enough to throw every near object around of any weight or mass, but I couldn't even understand the incredibly _comfortable _sinking bed underneath my back, feeling the relaxation of silken sheets wrapped around me—and touching my skin. A scary thought told me that I wasn't wearing anything, but that was stupid to think. Maybe. I don't know anymore.

I had no clue where I was, who was talking to me, or what had happened over the course of my nap, and the lack of knowledge was, for once, starting to make me feel a little crazy. My eyelids were so heavy that the light woman's voice coaxing me through the spacious ware I was moving in didn't even make sense, and what made more to a lack of information was the prod of something pudding-like against my lips, a cool metal spoon underneath it. Reflexively my mouth opened, and the banana-flavored, hinted-with-a-sweet-taste-I-couldn't-name dessert was slipped past the buds rousing on my tongue. It angled down my throat and left some sort of trail behind that I could still taste, even after it as already gone. The palate remained resolute in my mouth.

"_There," _said the woman's voice. _"All done." _She said it, essentially speaking to a child with the way her tone sounded, and it flared my anger and caged-animal fear even more to suddenly spring up from my dead eyes and sock her right in the face. My hearing said she was on my right side, but I could feel something moving on my left. Was I not alone with just one person anymore?

I gorged a throaty groan. I was afraid of where Witch Bitch had taken me, and where exactly I was floating, since I felt like the comforting cloud-bed under my light body was probably some sort of heaven-induced fascia of doom, that I would most likely have to cry about for the next forty-some-years 'cause even though I pretended I hated living, I didn't _really _want to die. Over the years when I thought of death, I was scared of it, but always believed that if it came for me I'd gladly accept the end. That is a lie now. I don't _want _to die. Not yet.

But a part of me also rationally knew that I wasn't dead. Great job, rational part! You did nothing to make me feel better! Here's a cookie for your crappy effort!

I turned my cheek onto something softer yet, and found that my bony fingers worked well enough under my obligation to move over the fluffy pillow cover, scrunching it in my fingers. Wherever I was, the person was rich, (_cough cough _Witch Bitch) and they had a damn nice bed. I moved my body around to maybe get a hold of my bearings.

That's when I opened my eyes. They were heavier than I expected, and my eyes weren't as adjusted to the bright room (bright as in not light, but the color white) as they were in my head. I saw a pure white ceiling, no popcorn (popcorn ceilings SUCK) and a light fixture that was so complicated that I couldn't explain it to you. I blinked the blurry images out of the way until I realized that my eyes felt a little funny. They felt…heavy, but not really a _tired _heavy. A _weighted _heavy.

I reached up to touch them and found, to my horror, what felt like fake eyelashes. I could literally touch the rim where they were attached. _What in the hell? _I lifted my nails to try and peel them off when I realized _another thing. _I stared in shock at the beautifully French-trimmed, long, _fake _nails on my ugly fingers, shiny and polished with some kind of shiny shiny shiny shine shine stuff that coulda put by eyes out. Disgusted, my jaw dropped and I grimaced, sitting ramrod straight in the bed in horror with what had become of my stupid, ugly fingernails, and WHY SOMEONE HAD DONE THIS TO ME, and listened to my eyes when they caught on to something else in a gargantuan mirror, spanning the wall across from me. It took up the whole wall so it was one giant, reflective surface, so I could see _every_thing.

I screamed. Not in fear, not in pain, but the _look _of myself.

_"WHAT IN THE _HELL?!"

Oh, my glob. My hair…my eyes…my _face…_oh my GLOB I look like a freakin' CUPCAKE! NO! My hair was burned by iron into long, wavy mermaid tresses, but as if screwing up my intellectual comfort with being completely plain, someone had _woven flowers _into my hair. Beachy pink and blue flowers that belonged more to the _lei _garlands that hula dancers had around their necks rather than being stuffed into my hair. As suspected, full black lashes rimmed my eyes until every inch of my upper lid was covered with plump streaks of black, and a shimmery silver was brushed across my eyelids, making me see sparkles every time I frickin' _blinked. _My cheeks were rosy by some plasteramic effin' shit that someone airbrushed onto my face—not only that, but my naturally white skin (actually, lie alert: it isn't naturally the papery color. I got that from some weird transform-y thing that was NEVER EXPLAINED TO ME) was NOT WHITE. It was normal, human skin color. And my lips weren't apple red anymore. They were, like, a normal pearly color. The way they were before Noel killed me. And my irises—oh, my _irises—_were _gray _again! None of that weird lightning-shock blue they'd been. I looked like myself, if I destroyed all the Cupcake makeup application gummed all over my face like I was a Barbie doll.

Wait a second.

I stared into the mirror in horror, not only at my new bodily infatuation with the needs for makeup making me look like someone I wasn't under the circumstance that I actually looked _pretty _(I NEVER SAID THAT), but at my barren shoulder line more deserted than the arctic in Birchwood Forest, and the continuance of exposed skin all the way down to my waist, except for the slip of lace holding my chest in place.

Oh. My. GLOBIT.

I WASN'T WEARING ANYTHING!

I screamed again and grabbed the silky white sheets from my lap and pulled them up over myself, hiding the seductive black lace that I feared. What in _Garmadon's _name was happening here? What the hell? Oh my jeez-Louise, I actually started to get even more scared at the shake in my body, pulling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around the human-toned skin, discovering that my lower half was _also _hidden by black lace.

What was happening? Where was I? I stared at myself on the giant bed via the mirror, looking at the totally white and gold sheets they decorated it with. There was nothing here but this bed, no closet, no door but the one on the left wall that didn't have a doorknob on it (just a keyhole) and no dresser, no personalized items, wall hangings, anything. The room, save for the wall across from me, was white out of its ass. Blank, empty, like a desert, but DESERTS HAVE SOME COLOR. THIS PLACE IS LIKE BEING STUCK WHERE THE PENGUINS LIVE. Mounds of pillows horded and caved in the head of the bed, pillows in both gold and—you guessed it—white coverings, and were fluffy enough to make me think that they hadn't ever been used. The bed itself could fit at least four more people, and I was scared to death. More scared of this room than anything, and not from the endless light, but from the way that it was _too lacking in personality _to make me believe someone had ever lived here before, ever. This room wasn't _used _for sleeping and living in.

_She belongs to Kaos now. She's his property._

I'm dressed like a fucking stripper.

Oh, my god. Oh, my god.

My heart pounded. They'd kidnapped me. They'd drugged me with Roofies or something and stuck me in here, some ghost person (unless she'd left?) feeding me banana-ish pudding. This bed was put here for _comfort, _the mirror was there for watching, and what the _fuck, _was that a _camera? _I noticed the flashing red light high in the corner of the room, glaring at me through a focusing lens that reminded me of Yuki's eyes, and in my detained-animalistic fearful heart, I realized I wasn't safe. I wasn't in here to play a friendly game of checkers.

I started to cry. Not bawl out my eye sockets along with the corneas flowing out my face, but shed a coupla tears 'cause I realized what was happening. _She's his property. _I looked around for a way out, some sort of something that could get me out of here, but the door didn't have a handle. Was I strong enough to break it down with nothing but the pillows in this room?

I kicked off the covers and, trying to keep my eyes away from my reflection, put my feet on the cold floor. It was made out of what felt like wood but looked like cement, but that doesn't matter right now. There was nothing but a lock on the room that needed a key to be inserted into it. It wasn't likely that they'd left the key just hangin' around, but there had to be _something. _I ducked to look and see if there was anything under the bed that I could use that just might help me A) break down the door, or B) give me a way to pick the lock. I checked if there were pins in my hair, but I found none. Stupid FLOWERS, WHY YOU NO HAVE PINS?

The underneath of the bed was empty…

Except for a box.

*** asterisk * asterisk * asterisk- young readers are warned now!   
**

I quickly grabbed onto the edge of the cardboard, yanking out the dusty container faster than I would've if I was just looking for something. I tucked my hair behind my ears and squinted my eyes so I could look at what was inside.

I gasped.

Tapes. _Video _tapes. Among them were old VCR cassettes that had, in heavy black marker, female names scribbled over the white tag, names that I could hear in my everyday life, that were common around Ninjago. Names of girls I could've gone to school with. Jessie, Lena, Laura, Skai, Crystal, Belle, Nicole. I dug through them and found the box housed maybe at least a hundred of them inside its one hold, all of them with their tape run to the right side, telling me that they certainly had been watched before I found them—I felt sick to my stomach. Vomit was ready to crawl back up my throat and explode out my mouth all over these tapes. I didn't want to think about what was on them, but I was pretty sure I unwillingly already knew.

How many of those girls had laid in this bed before I did, wondered about the same things I was? Did they find the box too? Did they realize what they were in for? Were they scared?

*** asterisk * - the part is over.**

I pushed the box away from me, covering my mouth with my hand. My vision was straggled by tears. I jumped to my feet, looking at the box as though it were a deadly poison, and looking up at the mirror. I needed something sharp to pick into the lock, didn't I? My own two fists had the potential to smash in that glass on the mirror—but would that work? Could I cut a splinter so thin that it would fit into the lock and help me get out of here?

Only worth a shot.

I looked down at the box. I needed to do this. Not only for myself, but I'd also do it for all those poor girls who'd once before been put into my situation.

I got as close to the wall as I could, looking at my own reflection with anger. Kaos had manipulated almost a hundred girls into the very spot I was in, maybe kidnapping them the way I'd been taken, and had forced them into doing Garmadon-knows-what for the camera in the corner. I flickered to look up at it, the red light still glowing, warning me that it was already on and recording me. Maybe those videos were of those girls being stuck in here, trying to get out, before he came in for them. I shook my head of the images.

_For once, _I thought, swallowing hard, _I wish Cole was here. _

I ran at the mirror as fast as I could in such a small space, and threw all my weight against the glass, using my shoulder to ram into myself. It was cold and hard and it hurt to hit myself at that angle, but it didn't shatter, not so much as a crack. I ran back to the wall and charged for it again. My shoulder throbbed from harming it, but the mirror remained stable, not shaking nor moving even if I hit it, ignoring me completely. I took one step back.

The sound of the door shutting made me stop.

I spun to face the door, expecting nothing but my own insanity speaking to me by exciting my brain with sounds I wanted to hear but didn't, coming to find that my expectations were not as accurate as I formerly acclaimed. The door _had _opened and shut, but not to beckon me exit.

To let Death waltz in.

The metal mask I'd seen Kaos wearing the night he told me he faked the scene with Lloyd (I was too scared to call him Twinkies, fearing that karma would suddenly decide she wanted payback and stop him from coming to help me) was strapped over his face, but the glowing green eyes I'd known before were nothing of a neonic strobe light, this time a metallic silver. He wore that stupid black cloak that stopped me from truly meeting him, and it was just me versus a mask-wearing kidnapper and disgusting prick who was too scared to show his face, 'cause why else would you hide behind the mask and the power of your lies? I clenched my fists, and standing my ground, faced him, staring him down with my _own _power: venom. He wasn't going to get away with this, and I sure as hell was not going to let him.

"Let's not injure yourself too terribly, sweetheart," he said. His voice was not the voice I'd heard him speak in when he was telling me he lied to me. It was…it was Cole's. I knew he was lying, but it was still a shock to hear come out of his mouth. _That's why his eyes are silver, _I thought. _He's trying to psych me out. _

"What did you do to those girls?" I demanded. I stuck out my chin.

Kaos chuckled in Cole's chuckle. But when he looked back up at me from the closed-eyed chortle, his eyes morphed from silver into a familiar light blue. "What do you propose I did to them?" asked Zane's disembodied voice. I felt my fake nails draw blood in my skin.

"You held them here, like you're doing to me, didn't you?" It was more of a statement than a question. "You made them feel scared and terrified before you ended up…" I couldn't finish. My own nerves and the loud thundering of my heart in my ears made it impossible to explain. But Kaos knew the answer. His eyes bled out into a chocolate brown that I didn't recognize, but then into a pale golden haze that I did.

"Actually, that's just _you," _said Kai's deep voice. I stood my ground. _It's not really him, _I thought. _It's Kaos. He's trying to freak you out. Keep your head held high, Seiko. You need to do this to avenge all those girls. _I'm not one to happily help other girls—I mean, they can deal with their own problems—but in this situation, I think I can make one helluva exception. I glared at him until he explained himself. "The rest of them came willingly. You're the only one I've had to force here."

"Willingly," I repeated. "So you manipulated them."

His eyes switched to green, but a normal green that wasn't a symbolic trait of all evildoers. "You could say that," Jay's voice came, muffled below the mask. "I pretended to be their crush and brought them here, making them think it was a secret ninja base rather than my evil lair. Pretty admirable to run off with a stranger, if you ask me. They all happily fell into my arms. No matter who I was." Kaos's eyes flipped through a montage of the Ninja's eyes, suspiciously leaving out Lloyd's. I didn't know how to feel about that.

"What did you do with them?" I asked, gravelly. Kaos looked at the bed and smirked, his eyes morphing into an eclipse betraying cool brown eyes. I'd know those eyes anywhere. I gasped.

"They're where they need to be," said my father darkly. "Where they'll all stay."

_He killed them, _I thought, and tears involuntarily escaped my eyes. Kaos seemed to enjoy watching my pain, and I couldn't let him suck that in like he'd milked the asses of evil for as long as he existed, not let myself show how terrified I was. If he'd done what I thought he'd done to all those girls before killing them, I had only a couple of chances to find my way out of here, no matter what the hell I broke in my body trying to leave. But for now, I had to pretend like I wasn't a threat.

"It's obvious that you're trying to pretend you're not going to run," said Kaos, this time wearing the voice of Noel. Two people I hated the most—combined into one. Wow. That, and I was that obviously projecting my thoughts. Wonderfuk. "So why don't you just crawl into the bed like a normal person being held hostage would and not make a peep nor comment?"

You'd think it'd be a lot more miserable and frightening walking towards that bed, like walking towards the gallows where I'd be hung and killed. But it didn't feel very different than most walks towards my bed, except for the fact that this wasn't mine and there was a freakin' creeper standing a few feet away, watching my every move. I could feel his eyes on me as I sat down in the middle of the bed (after he told me to) and crossed my arms over my chest, almost pouting at this, when inside I was about to blow. I was so terrified that every part of me wanted to cry until I cried pee or something when I ran out of salty tears, but I needed to keep my poker face on to make it out of this. My breathing was forced to be steady.

"Good girl," he purred in a voice I didn't recognize. "I'm glad you cooperated. You see, I knew you'd be trouble, but that's just your nature. I brought you here through hogtying and other various kidnappery because I need you here, and I knew that you wouldn't come willingly. Your power is ultimately the most unstoppable means of concept that could ever have been created; the Void can't be opposed. Giving the ability to have you in my capture would make _me, _a man capable of controlling minds, more powerful than _anything _that would ever exist in this universe. With you, I can finally defeat the Ninja and take over the world, making this place bow under my command, under my ability." Kaos chuckled. "I know that you won't ever be able to escape my clutches for as long as you're alive, so I don't worry about that. What I _have _been considering, with many long hours, is my heir."

"Your _hair_?" I wrinkled my nose. "What the fuck do I have to do with your _hair?"_

_"HEIR," _Kaos repeated loudly. Whoops. "PRONOUNCED AIR."

"Got it! Jeez."

"My _heir _would never be as powerful as I may want it to with any other creature. But with _you…" _Kaos sounded like he was smiling. "He'd be the most powerful thing in the world. Fit to take over when I cannot rule anymore. He'd be UNSTOPPABLE!"

"Good luck," I spat, trying to keep my mind away from the idea of giving him an 'heir.' "I'm not giving you hair _or _an heir."

Kaos didn't react. Or maybe he did, I just couldn't see it under his mask. "I knew you'd deny it," he said, "which is why I'm going to do this like I should, if you're going to become my princess. My queen. Any woman should know the face of her future husband, and for that, I am not going to hide from you. I'm going to show you my real face."

"Oh yeah? How do I know you're not just going to lie to me and pretend that you're someone else?" I snapped. The likelihood of him showing me his real face was very dim, considering that he'd been hiding behind that metal thing for as long as I'd known he existed, which was the sole purpose of pretending to be someone he wasn't so he could hide. Why just give it all up now because you wanted to show whom you thought was going to mother your child how you looked? His word, if given, would mean nothing to me. I had no reason to believe he wouldn't lie.

"I'd give you my word, but I see that you wouldn't take that." Dag _nammit, _how did he keep reading my thoughts? Was he actually READING them? "No, sweetheart, it's just written all over your face." My breath shook as he started moving closer to the bed, a mask moving over a black cloak. It was like something out of a horror movie. I felt more scared than I'd ever felt in my entire life, even more so than when Lou stuck me in Sunnyside, because now I was being cornered by some metal-faced freak who wanted to have a kid with me. I'm freakin' fifteen, for Garmadon's sake!

Or wait…What day is it? Maybe I already turned sixteen. I haven't looked at the calendar lately...

"You can trust me because I know for a fact that your power cancels out mine," said Kaos vaguely. I frowned. "When we touch, my power will disappear, if that's what you need to hear to just take it off. But I'm not hiding right now. Behind it, I'm already in my real face. All you need to do is take the mask away."

"My power cancels yours? Is that because the Void cancels out everything else?" My question came before I could stop it. Kaos sunk onto the bed beside me, staring at me with two eyes underneath a hood and a mask. He blinked, once, and his eyes were neon green again.

Without answering, Kaos reached into his hood with both hands, doing something inside of it that I couldn't see. When his hands came back out, he crawled closer to me, getting far too close for my own comfort. I mean, he's got creepy eyes and a mask of metal (worse than Michael Meyers's face!) like a murderer straight from Stephen King's brain. I felt sick again, having him so close.

"I'm hiding my voice from you now," he admitted softly. "When you take off my mask, I'll stop."

"When _I _take off your mask?" _No. I don't want to touch that thing! _

Kaos reached out from underneath his cloak, and I realized that he had human hands. Unlike how I wanted him to take off his own mask, he gestured from my hands to the metal thing. "Do it, Seiko," he said, in a weird tone. "See who I really am…for _who _I really am."


	73. Chapter 73

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE:  
**When Time Stood Still

This was one chance. One chance I got to unmask the true killer, the murderer, the guy who took over my brain on many occasions and made me look like an idiot. A man who had made me scared to trust myself with anything when he forced me to believe everything I thought was a measure of my own insanity. He had tortured the Ninja, he'd destroyed things, he'd made me hate him in a matter of a couple days after coming from Noel's World into Kaos's Land of Impeccable Doom. He brainwashed people into things that weren't really happening, he videotaped girls he manipulated into his 'here,' (wherever that is) and he was the worst villain I could think of. This was the _one chance _that I would _ever _get to do something and be the first one to discover something before everyone else did, but that wasn't the goal. This was destiny telling me that this was my chance to unmask him, escape, and tell the Ninja what I found. Make myself useful or something.

I felt tears start coming out of my eyes without wanting them to, like most of the stupid tears I cried like a frickin' Cupcake. My hands shook with the tension.

Time stood still.

I told myself to reach up and take off the mask, but I was scared to believe him, and scared of what I might find. Some part of me knew that he wasn't lying when he said I'd cancel out that power, but the more suspicious part knew I had no reason to trust him. I'd been dying to know who Kaos really was since day one. _How can you hide from the devil if you don't even know what he looks like? _

Kaos shut his eyes. The glow from underneath the mask stopped, and I stared, lifting my shaking hands slightly but searching for the power to move them forward in their journey. _Do it, _I told myself. _For all those girls who were abused by him. Do it for YOU._

With a deep breath holding in my lungs, I reached up. The cool metal was like ice underneath my fingers, and with my stomach ready to retch banana pudding, I pulled softly, feeling it come off of his face immediately when I used my strength. (No, it wasn't, like, glued, I just meant me using my willpower to remove it. This is scarier than you think.) There were two little ropes that came from out of his hood, pulling out slowly with my hands. I was literally holding the face of evil between my palms. As soon as it came clear off his face, and I could see a pair of deep blue eye watching me through the holes they'd once masked themselves in, I dropped the metal as if it were a snake, eager to get the tainted piece away from me. I raised my eyes from the discarded mask.

He pulled down his hood.

I stared at him. For a second, his face didn't register, but suddenly everything made sense and _didn't _make sense, my brain connecting his deep blue eyes with nothing of the green ones they'd been lying about this whole time. I couldn't understand just how this was happening. I didn't understand. I…I _didn't understand! _

Horror. Betrayal. Mostly not being able to understand, I gasped loudly, tears streaming in floods down my face, and my palm slowly raising to cover my lips that wanted to scream in fear as I attempted to process how this even happened. My mouth kept opening, but nothing was ever able to come out, as the things I wanted to say were all diving for the chance to come out, making it impossible to speak with the words battling for dominance. He offered me a weak smile. I'd seen it before hundreds of times.

"Hi, Seiko," he said, voice deep and scratchy and beforehand so very perfect.

My voice barely came out as a whisper. There was a bubble in my throat that I couldn't talk around. The tears that were falling before became routine. _This can't be happening, _I thought in revulsion.

"_Lloyd?" _


	74. Chapter 74

******WARNING! CHAPTER CONTAINS A LIME!**** IF YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE OF 13 OR PREFER A NO LIME LIFE, SKIP PAST THE SMALL LIME PART MARKED BY ASTERISKS!**

**Thanks to Terra, Rian, and Emi for writing the lime since I ****_never _****could. **

* * *

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR:  
**No Brother

Kaos slapped a hand over his face, knowing he had that one coming. Of _course _he had that one coming. Who _wouldn't _have that one coming? He gave a loud groan of annoyance—he couldn't help it—and peeked through his fingers to find his princess griping to get away from him, pretty much tumbling over the side of the bed and landing on her ass—her adorable ass—with the blankets in tow. She pulled them around herself like a shawl and stared in dismay. "How—how _could _you—_Lloyd!" _she gasped.

"NO," he said loudly, hating that name so much. "You'd be lucky to have him here, wouldn't you?" Kaos untied the knot at his throat, ready to be free of this damned cape. He wasn't hiding anymore. "Then he could save your ass, and the two of you could ride off into the sunset." He jumped off the bed and alighted before the mirror, turning on her fear and shock with deep cerulean eyes. "I _hate _him. Of course I'm not _him." _

"So you're _LYING _to me again!" Seiko pushed herself against the wall, but looked honorably pissed. Kaos took a deep breath of forced patience. He didn't expect her to know much, but jeez, with as much time as she spent with that boy, didn't she know anything?

"No, you twit, this is my real face!" He snapped. Seiko looked like a dumbstruck bird before it flew into a window. "UGHHHHHH. Women!" He clenched his fists. This was not going as planned. He forced himself to take a couple of choice seconds to dye the anger a timid paint away from the closeness he was to ripping her apart here and now, but he still needed her alive. "My name isn't _Lloyd," _he snapped, ready to punch the wall. "He came after I did when my mother killed me."

…

He ground his teeth, angered at the unpleasant thought of Danielle spreading into his mind like lice bred over the hairs of an unwashed itinerant. Seiko stared at him, still holding the sheets for dear life in her corner, and Kaos forced himself another wave of patience before going on. "My mother was trying to 'protect' me with her witchy spells, but it didn't exactly work out as planned," he growled, hating venturing into his past. "She ended up taking my life instead. She then tried to initiate a spell that would bring me back from the dead into my old body, using her witchcraft." Kaos's eyes glazed over. He stared at the wall. "But when my mother was begging her sorcery and the dead Spirits of all witches for me to come back, she was blindly groping in the dark for a soul to reinstate into the body of her son, expecting to find that I was the nearest one. She was reaching through the darkness, crying. I remember seeing her face in the dark and reaching for her, too. But someone made it there first. A soul that wasn't mine." Kaos clenched his teeth. "She felt the child's soul, and she immediately took it without trying to see if it was me or not. She was too desperate to make sure that it was the real me. So she put the dead spirit of a different boy in my body, and the veil between the living and the dead closed." Kaos closed his eyes. "Whom she took from the dead was the spirit of one of the miscarried children of Misako and Damon Garmadon. The last one that they'd recently lost. I was left to float in the void of death by myself, just a kid, without anything, anyone. No one. It's awful lonely on the other side. Until one day, the veil opened again, and I found my father waiting for me on the other side. He was with a young woman named Zara, an Elemental Leader; my father had bargained for my soul to come back. However, since I already had a different person in my body, she had to give me a new one that was a reference to my old self. A replica of the body of my old self, taken over by Lloyd Garmadon." Kaos shuddered. "I was brought back as a thirteen year old, and I grew up naturally, unlike _him, _who cheated. I lived with my father, where my mother never knew me. The _real _me. I learned the nature of my true powers, because I am a half-breed. I only ever started calling myself _Kaos _after I became powerful. I became a rival to Eloquim the Deadly. I branched off on my own to create facades and falsetries and illusions to confuse and trick the Ninja, like when I tricked Eloquim into thinking that he had Kai Smith on his side, when it really was Elathan. I've been around for a _long _time, and the Ninja have seen my techniques _multiple _times. They've just never heard of me until now."

*** asterisk! * **

Seiko stared at him, trying to understand, but her expression could only help her say, "If all that's true, then who are you really? If you're not Lloyd, and you're not really Kaos, who _are_ you?"

He smiled, fox-like. He had begun to see _it_ happening before, how she was fidgeting, how she was biting her lip, and the way her body starting to grow hot when there was no heat in the room. She was becoming itchy, and feeling great discomfort in certain areas, and she was not having fun trying to hide it. He felt his own grin begin to corrupt his face, there really was no reason for her to be like this, after all he was just telling her the truth. He saw the flash of desperation in her eyes which was pretty much a plea at this point and he descended upon her.

He sauntered for her, his body weaving around the bed and finding her stuck to her corner being dazed with information and senses and probably starting feeling the effects of the banana mush-gush his maid had fed her. Seiko tried to remain stagnant in her position and rolling out the best poker-face of determination she could, but when her expression tipped once when he moved close to her, he knew that the magic was working. Danielle really wasn't a failure after all!

That really hideous gemstone around her neck didn't complement her eyes, she needed something more spicy to make her look better. That necklace was his only way of getting this from her though and he needed this to happen. He stood as close as he could. "I go by Kyon, when I'm not working," said Kyon softly, leaving Kaos behind.

Seiko bit down on her lip, hard. Under the blankets she crossed her legs trying to make the burning go away, but her fidgeting wasn't missed. The discomposure in her face made him know that Danielle really did do her job, he reached out with his hand to touch her cheek and watched her not have the breath to tell him to go away. Thankfully Danielle had a heady enough amount of lust in the banana mush.

She wanted him. He knew she wanted him but not for who he was, for his body. She wriggled to keep in her moans. The things they were just saying really were long forgotten. The only thing she had to be thinking about was how badly she was burning and Kyon teased her with engaging his hands on the corner walls behind her, he bent down and gently brushed his lips across her cheekbone. Seiko pulled away. "Stay away from me,"

"You know you want me," Kyon kissed her temple lightly to hit a tender spot but that wasn't where Seiko must've been soft at. He nudged her nose with his.

"Don't touch me!" She pushed him away, Kyon stumbled backwards. "Sicko, get lost!"

Kyon chuckled, "Your adorable when your mad,"

"And _YOU'RE _a sadistic Freakazoid who can't seem to fucking leave me alone!" Seiko's rage let her bend down to the box full of tapes at her feet, all in resemblance to the people that she was in a custom with, and picked up the nearest one. _I'll avenge you, Emily! _Seiko thought for the girl whose name was on the tape, and with her hardest force whipped the tape across the room at him. Kyon ducked and the cassette bounced off the mirror. _Still no dent?! _

Kyon quickly kicked the box under the bed before she could grab another tape, and he grabbed her wrists. He abnormally resisted the way that she kicked him over and over again. Dragging her towards the bed, Seiko gave a scream that Kaos didn't pay attention to, chucking her down on the bed as she thrashed, and her cries for help were swallowed by the soundproof walls. Not that anyone in the bastion would come help anyway. He threw his weight on top of her to hold her down. Using his hands to push aside the sheets so he could see her body, Kyon pinned her hands to the bed, leaning his lips on the taste of her throat. She tasted so good.

Seiko screamed more, Kyon couldn't hear her. His weight was far stronger than hers and he held her down, biting her skin and moving his hips against her. The potions that Danielle made had to be telling Seiko not to resist him and give in but that burdensome mind of hers had to be counterattacking what her body was telling her. Kyon pulled at the lace bra with his teeth. She was all his, she wouldn't get away.

She was sobbing. Kyon sucked on her neck, heat rising inside of himself, as she cried above his head. It was annoying, but Kyon busied himself. _"Cole!" _she wailed, sobbing at the same time. _"Cole! Help me! Ple-e-e-a-asseee! Co-o-ole! COOLLEE!"_

*** ASTERISK * you may read again :3**

…

When Wu, Damon, and Misako kicked Cole out of the kitchen, he had to go busy himself with going into the living room like everyone else (minus Kai and Lloyd) that happily included the groggy Zane, who was drinking ginger ale and watching Jay try to play checkers against Ming. He was losing, but it was funny to watch. Cole sat on the couch by Nya, but not _too _close, just close enough so their daughter, placed neatly on the cushion between them, could flop her legs around and look like just about the cutest thing Cole had ever laid his eyes on. He worked on rubbing her little belly with his hand and crossing his eyes in front of her face, because when she looked up at him she'd make spit bubbles that he preferred to take as her laughing at him. She smirked with her tiny lips, almost in a reflex, but that's because she didn't know how to smile fully yet. Cole took the small stuffed cat that fit in his palm, given to Rie by Ming, and danced it over her legs. "Where's the kitty?" He asked, and Rie's big grey eyes widened. She kicked her tiny feet. Cole smiled proudly. "That's right! Great job, sweetheart!" He bent down his head and kissed her stomach, where her small purple shirt rose up over her diaper. "You're so smart," he cooed. Rie reached for him with her hands, cupping his face with her tiny palms, and she made another spit bubble. "Oh, you're just so beautiful," Cole told her, stroking her cheek. "I love you so much."

Rie made a noise. Cole smiled lovingly at her, as a father should. "Yeah," he said, acting like he knew what she said, when he really didn't. "I agree with you. Cake really _should _be the official national symbol for Ninjago." Rie's nonexistent eyebrows furrowed, turning her face to this small, round expression of _dis_agreement when she stuck her tongue between her lips. Cole chuckled. "Sorry. I didn't mean to offend." He kissed her belly again.

That's when he noticed everyone was staring at him. Cole looked up in surprise. Ming and Jay had stopped their game so they could watch him, Jay appearing the most amused with his soft smile, and Zane looked like he was having fun watching Cole rather than the intriguing game of moving pieces around on the table. Nya lazily was leaning back, watching the two of them with a happy smile on her face. He frowned. "What?" He asked.

"You're just a good father," Jay said, shrugging. Leaning back on one hand with his legs crossed in front of him, Jay reached with his floating hand to move his next red checker on the board. "It's cool to watch."

"It hasn't even been twenty-four hours since Rie was born," Cole remarked, frowning. "How would you know if I'm a good father or not?"

"You just have that thing about you," answered Nya while Jay engrossed himself in the game. Cole looked at her. "We can all see it in your eyes that you love her more than anything."

Cole's face softened. He looked down at his beautiful daughter with tender heartache inside of him, and not the painful heartache. The _good _one. "Well _that _I do," he granted, meeting Rie's huge eyes. She wiggled her feet in front of him, bringing him irresistibly to play with the cat on her belly again. Rie waved her hands while he played with her.

Cole sensed something strange prickle the back of his neck seconds before Seiko walked in, stretching out her body in a long sweater and shorts. She stood in the doorway, her black hair in a long ponytail on the back of her head, and her bangs pinned out of her face. _That's a first, _Cole thought, sentimentally offset a little weird. He felt almost…certain that he needed to be cautious around Seiko, a feeling he often got when he was near Maya, but Maya pretty much fell off the face of the earth, along with Danielle, neither of which showed up yesterday when they were supposed to. Seiko stretched. "Good…what is it, afternoon? Good morfernoon!" She said, cracking her fingers.

Zane set down his soda. "Morfernoon?"

"Morning-slash-afternoon!" Seiko said, and walked into the room. She sat beside Zane on the couch. "What kind of boring game requiring brain activity are we playing today?" She leaned forward and peeked over Jay's shoulder, frowning favorably at his choice of move. Cole doubted she even knew the aspect of checkers and sighed into Rie's belly. The baby made a noise.

Seiko's head snapped over. She narrowed her eyes at Rie for a second before then staring in admiration and reverence, looking like she'd just won the lottery and now someone was handing her a check. Cole realized that she hadn't met Rie yet—but did he want her to?

"OH MY GLOB, look at—is that a him or a her?"

"It's a her," said Nya proudly, reaching out her hands to tickle Rie's belly. The baby wiggled. "Little Rie."

"She kinda has your eyes, Cole," said Seiko. He shrugged. Seiko crawled over across the floor, coming up to the couch cushion where Rie laid, her own eyes as big as discs. She looked so enthralled with the sight of Cole's baby that he clashed with the urge to growl at her to back off; if he was going to be a better brother, he needed to stop wanting to do those sorts of things to his sister. She sat on her knees in front of Rie. The baby had her head turned to the side, looking at Seiko like she did everybody else, with giant eyes and her tongue sticking out her lips. She wiggled her limbs. "Oh, she's so…_oh." _Seiko sounded envious. "She's perfect." In another world, she extender her finger to gently touch Rie's side, feeling how the skin of a baby felt for the first time. An automatic smile came from her face. "I want her!"

Cole snorted. "What would _you _do with a baby?" he shook his head. "You can barely remind _yourself _to _shower_. Imagine having to take care of another human being."

His sister surprisingly took that insult well. She rolled her eyes. "I happen to think that babies are adorable. When they're not screaming and pooping themselves. I think I like them more when other people take care of them." Nya laughed at Seiko's humor. It earned her a pat on the back from Jay.

"Let's hope you grow out of that," he said, and Nya laughed again.

When Seiko got back up to sit by Zane, he started talking to her about age and growing up and the things she wanted to do. Cole barely listened, because he was drawn to what Nya was saying about how well Rie slept, but when he happened to glance over, he saw something in Seiko's eyes that he didn't remember ever seeing before. It looked like she was extremely _happy _to be talking to someone. She looked like she was happy to be here. Cole didn't think he'd see her look like that, ever, but it looks like maybe _both _of them needed a little bit of touching up on their attitudes. Cole just hoped that he'd one day be able to find the peace he wanted to have with his little sister, to go back to the way they'd been as kids. The time where he was always there for his sister and _wanted _to help her through all her problems—life, booboos, jigsaw puzzles. Maybe one day he'd be able to look her in the eye, assist her whenever she called for his help, and not have to see the ache of her past underneath the pray for the aid she begged for.


	75. Chapter 75

**EdgeChronicles01: **No, I think you might of missed a chapter somewhere a while back. I mentioned something about Nicholas in the chapter that Dani turned herself human and 33 again. Nicholas is a man that Kaos killed once- he gave this whole story about him- and likes to wear his image as a trophy because he was able to kill a powerful man, when he's a half-breed and half breeds are apparently idiots who don't know how to do anything, so he was flaunting the fact that a half-breed can do something that extraordinary. :) But Dani called him Nicholas because that's the face he was "wearing" when he walked in. But Kaos is not Nicholas. He's Kyon. :D

**All Readers: Go have an awesome day/night!**

* * *

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE:  
**United We Were, Divided We Are  
_~Yang~_

I sunk lower into the giant bath tub, submerging myself for the umpteenth time into the depths to try and make all my issues suspended, like the way your body is when you're floating inside the water. As far as all the other times I ducked myself under the Jacuzzi-worthy bath waters went, (I could probably fit six sumo wrestlers in here, not putting myself in the awkward situation of being in there with them) it did nothing to take my problems and drown them. I brought myself back out of the water with the pop of sound suddenly existing again. I couldn't hear anything but rush underneath the surface. Shoving my wet hair out of my eyes, I looked at the empty bathroom around me, at the mirror across from the bath that I didn't want to look at. My eyes were hollow and sunken in, ruins embedded into their circle. You would think that coming back from the dead would feel strange, but all it came to be for me was just like waking up from a deep sleep. The thing that bothered me most about my refurbishment was how weird it felt to me to have a heartbeat. On normal days, I never noticed that I had one. Only in the eve of battle was I ever able to hear and feel it. But now, when I considered myself calm (compared to a billion other times I was _not) _I could suddenly feel it thumping against my chest. I felt anxious, nervous, and paranoid, like someone was watching me even if I was all alone in here. I kept looking over at my reflection, expecting to see someone else sitting beside me, just how it was in that rated R movie I watched. (The one with the freakin' succubus.) Where you thought you were alone and saw nothing beside you, but the second you looked at a mirror, you realized you weren't because there was totally another reflection of someone—or something—beside you/behind you. I could feel that creeping up on me right now, but I couldn't place whom exactly I was supposed to be expecting to find at my side. I mean, I was sitting in the bathtub. It's not like I invited Nya to come in with me. I'm totally, one-hundred percent alone right now.

Still.

I flicked a few bubbles in the water, leaning back against the wall and letting the peak of my head rest on the turquoise tile. I guess I'm just putting off the inevitable. What's really bothering me isn't the heartbeat, and it's not the paranoia, and it's not that the water is super warm. It's the fact that I've been trying to avoid thinking about _him. _About Kai.

About…how he…likes me.

A lot.

I don't know how to deal with that information. I've never given much thought to love, maybe a couple of times when I was looking at the first female friend I've ever become acquainted with (discluding Nya) and thinking about the physics of love and just how it would feel to know it, _love,_ before realizing I'm only just a kid still, and even if I did think I'd fallen in love, it probably wouldn't last 'forever.' I don't know much about what it feels like, to _love _someone. I know what it feels like to _like _someone, but that's just a huge distance away from _love. _The connections between the two are immensely proportionate when you considered the sufficient figures of how many times a teenager 'falls in love' with their girlfriend/boyfriend and actually stays with them. Teenagers, from my observations, tend to think love is what they feel in their young relationships, but I'm probably the only guy in the world who thinks that's baloney. I know for a fact that all four of my brothers have, to some extent, become and admitted to being that stupid in their first couple of dates. Zane is just about the only one I know that fell in love for his first date and stayed that way until he had his brain erased by Eloquim. Jay told me, once, that in seventh grade he went on a "date" to the movies with a girl named Maur Pleaz and thought that he was in love with her, up until she broke his heart the next day by dumping him. He told me he now realizes what an idiot he was, now that he has Nya and what the two feel for each other is deeper than dirt (sorry, bad cheating joke) and knows what it's like to be in love. Cole has told me plenty of stories about going on dates, not necessarily searching for his soul mate, but just because, and ended up not finding the rewarding endgame he wanted with each one. He mentioned that he was young, stupid, and a bad romantic. Apparently, he hasn't learned his lesson, because he did the same with Nya (I think…) and ended up having that one turn out just as bad as all the other ones. I don't know what he feels for Nya. I don't really want to ask. It's not that kind of thing I spend my days groveling for, digging up everything at the surface so I can get the truth. That's Gayle Gossip's job, and she's dead. (If you don't remember, Maya Kiko killed her.) Also, Ka…My best friend also told me about how he dated a bunch of girls in high school too, and never really got serious with them because he only _liked _them, but never _loved _them. And that's all I'm going to say about him right now.

See, my point is that I don't have a clue what love is, and every teenager out there has underwent some kind of phase where they thought "This is the one" and ended up not even staying with them for very long, moving on the very next day. I guess it's our nature to think that when we find something it's got to be real, but it isn't. I've grown out of my little kid shorts, learned a couple of things about life by observing the mistakes that my brothers have made—for instance, DON'T CHEAT WITH YOUR BROTHER'S GIRLFRIEND, and DON'T DATE AN EERILY SUSPICIOUS REDHEADED ROBOT WITHOUT CHECKING HER MAINFRAME EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE TO SEE WHAT SHE'S UP TO—and I think that I'm only _mildly _informed when it comes to the world of relationships, but certainly not the pro that all the other teenagers seem to think they are just 'cause they know a little and think it's a pot of gold. I mean, I'm barely familiar with the little butterflies I get when I like someone (and it isn't K…my best friend, nor any of my other brothers) but am not demanding of myself the balls to believe that it's honest love that I've been blessed with feeling. I really _am _only a kid, not dipping too technologically, at age seventeen who ADMITS he's never been in love. With that being said, I wouldn't even know barely ANYTHING about sexuality. I know that it's either you like guys, you like girls, or you enjoy both, and it isn't like I've sat down and had the proper conversation with myself somewhat related to: "Hmmmm, Lloyd, do you like guys or do you like girls?" Honestly, I've never looked at a man and gone, "Dayummm, he's sexy" in a way that meant I wanted to sleep with him. I've never looked at one and got all blushy because I thought he was cute. I've never looked at my best friend and believed that we were supposed to be together. I saw him as my older brother, someone I could talk to freely without censoring it like I do with all the other people I've lived with, but I guess that he saw me as more than that. _Way _more than that.

It makes me feel a little scared. Not _of..._him, but of just how long this has gone on without me noticing. Did he think about me in ways that Jay thought about Nya, or did he think of me in ways that Cole did when he gave Nya her baby? Both? Did he dream about sleeping with me, or view me as a forbidden fruit because he knew if he touched me, my dad would kick his ass? I had questions, but I didn't want to ask. I was still trying to process just how exactly this could be.

Kai never struck me as the person who liked guys. Especially not me. When the tally came up to par, I was technically eleven, and that could've ranged to meaning he was a practical pedophile. Maybe when he said he loved me, he was just having a phase, like all teenagers. Maybe he was just moving through the motions of thinking he liked me. He was the guy who liked girls. I _know _he does. We've _talked _about it before. He's described to me the traits he want in his _wife. _He's talked to me about how many hot fangirls he has. I _know _him. He's never ONCE _ever_ said _anything _to me about thinking he has real feelings for a boy.

For _me. _

I don't believe it.

To top all of this off… he kissed me.

The feeling of his mouth against mine still tingled, and I had scrubbed my mouth with water six times already, not of disgust, but to rid myself of that strange prickling feeling that came as needles in my skin. I could feel his lower lip wedged between mine, feel his frightened breath flow against my face when he pulled away. In a matter of two days, I'd been kissed by _both _the Smith siblings.

That's just scary.

I dove under the water again. I knew in my heart that I didn't feel anything for Kai—it was only brotherly love that attached me to him—that would suffice for kissing him, give or take how awful that hurts to feel. I _couldn't _feel anything for Kai. The whole point of being a ninja team was to be _brothers _throughout everything, to stick together no matter what, to jump every hurdle with our eyes on each other to make sure that we left no Ninja behind. But as the days go by, it seems like Zane and I are the only two of five remembering that. Jay and Cole, albeit having clashing personalities, have tried to kill each other over _Nya, _and Kai has been undercover and making googly eyes at me for the past god-knows how long, forgetting the fact that we're _brothers. _It feels like lately we've been becoming less of a team and more of individual people living in the same house, but not having any of our old in-tune correlation to each other at all. Cole is a dad now, so he'll want to spend as much time as he can focused on his daughter rather than the team, and Jay is head-over-heels for Nya and is trying to probably get back that memory of hers so they can live happily ever after. Zane is off in his own world the majority of the time. Kai is struggling to understand his feelings. And me? I'm trying to hold myself together to deal with all my problems, so it's like I don't have _time _for other people.

We're not the way we used to be anymore. We've seen too many corners of each other that we've never seen before, and now that we have experienced the darkest parts of who we thought were our best friends, we can't seem to look at each other the way we once were. We're not _close _anymore.

I hate it. I miss it. What we were first dreading after the Overlord was gone now has become our gruesome reality:

We've all, even though we live in the same house, have gone our separate ways.

We feared it so much that we lived on the _Bounty _together for a flipping _year, _so hesitant to part with each other. We kept asking ourselves the same question: What will we do? Where will we go? Though I had gone to live with my parents, it isn't like I completely forgot everyone, pushing myself aside for the fact that Cole, Jay, Zane, and Kai had been together longer than my few-month stand with them. They'd been together for, what had they said, like, two years, not counting the year after the Final Battle? I wasn't as developed into the four-guy situation as they had become, so it was harder for them to find their footing on earth again than it was for me to find my crashing place. The four original Ninja had seemed to not know where they'd go from the day that we finished the cleanup from the Overlord's mess, and it looked like even Sensei didn't want to let them go, telling them that they were more than welcome to stay for as long as they wanted. Even after Sensei died, they remained together. Jay used to get all squeaky when he talked about splitting up, and Cole used to get depressed, and Kai used to get mad, and Zane would just sigh and say, "My father might enjoy my company…" in a forlorn voice. None of them have ever been closer to people than they were to each other.

And now look at them.

You can't call them a team anymore.

What we did today was just coming together to stop bullshit that wasn't even stopped. It was postponed. Now, Kaos has the Shadow Key, and hellion will rise by the time I'm sure the sun falls on tomorrow's end. Unless we can figure out where he is, he's bound to know exactly which way the Gates to the Underworld are, and is probably setting course for it right now while I'm sitting on my ass playing with bubbles in a bathtub, becoming more wrinkled and pruned than my dad. But what we did today was _not _teamwork.

Nobody is connected the way that we had once been, with jokes and easygoing personalities around one another, the air conjoined by bonds stronger than earth. We're all…detached. Divided. It's like that saying, "United we rise, divided we fall." Our rise was stronger than anything I've ever felt. Now that we're falling…we're falling apart, too.

I sniffled. I had never been happier than I was when we were together, because I felt a _part _of something, felt like I _belonged _when all my life that has been nothing but an aimless shot into the shadows. It's crumbled now. Gone. I could look at all the pictures Nya took of us back then and _see _how we were then, but look up and find that the picture lasted longer than the actual union.

I rubbed my eyes. I probably needed to get out of the tub before I turned into a replica of my dad.

I wrapped a towel around my waist and pushed my hair out of my eyes, leaving the water in the bathtub out of laziness to reach back in and unplug the stopper. Moving towards the sink mirror, ignoring the full length one by the bath immediately, I rubbed a small towel over my hair and shook it out to get rid of the extra water, then took my fingers through it, since combs and brushes don't exactly work with my hair. I scrubbed the back of my right hand over the Eye as if it could be rid by a little soap and water, but believe me, I've tried. I stared down at the mark with thinned lips. _Can't you help me? _I thought, thinking that I'd turn to the tattoo for advice before I turned to Dad, but respectively earning the lack of answer I knew would come. Moodily, my Eye only spoke when it wanted to, not when I asked it to. I sighed. _Of course you won't. _I glanced up at my reflection.

And gave a cry.

I was not alone.

Reeling, I spun to face whom I saw standing in my doorway, pink lips curled into an amused smile. My lower back pressed against the edge of the sink, heart still clear, in search of who lingered between rooms in the open door of my bathroom to bedroom, but in the real image saw nobody there, not so much as a footprint to let me know that I wasn't hallucinating. I suddenly understood how Zane felt when he saw an inverted Pythor standing in the doorway of the _Bounty _kitchen but was shot down when there was no snake in the video files.

It had to be because I was just so paranoid that it became real. I had been _thinking _about this same thing happening in the R movie, so now my past was coming back to haunt me. I might only be seventeen and hate to admit I'm wrong, but _dammit, _I get it now why they say 18 and Over on the cover! I'll never break the rules again. EVER.

I put a hand to my forehead and sank against the sink, closing my eyes for a second. Though my explanation was insignificantly plausible, that was frickin' scary as hell. I walked towards my door just to check and make sure (who the hell doesn't get scared and go check to make sure what they saw really wasn't there, other than those people who make fake Sasquatch videos and just stand there rather than going to check it out? I don't believe those because they're so unrealistic. I mean, dude, if you have a shotgun, just go _look. _Get closer. Shoot it in the brain so you can become rich off of killing the first-ever _real _Sasquatch. Do _something. _We can tell you're fakin' it when all you do is stand and stare.) The bedroom was empty. I couldn't sense another presence. _Good, _I thought, calming down a little. _I was just…hallucinating. Not that that's better, but at least I'm alone. _

I turned back into the bathroom.

"Looking for me?"

I screamed again, shooting green out of my hands before I realized what I was doing. It rocketed towards the full bath towards the body that sat on the granite keep, ready to slice off their head with a shock of Green Ninja ability. I moved to somehow beat my power there and shove them out of the way, but quick as lightning, they darted from their perch into a standing position a couple feet away without my help, letting the streak of green zap into the water and release a backsplash as big as if someone were to cannon ball it into the pool. Both of us were drenched with tub water. The slap of it hitting the tiled floor made me cringe at my mistake. Not only that, but I was sopping wet again.

"Jeez, I just wanted to pull a little prank on you, but remind me never to do that again," Seiko flapped her hands once as if to flick off gnarly goo, but that hardly did anything to get the water off of her. She was wet from head to toe, sweater killed with sleeves dangling past her hands and shorts waterlogged, looking like she just came out of cliff jumping rather than my bathroom. She held her arms akimbo and grimaced down at herself. Her hair stuck to her face; she made attempts to spit out the hair in her mouth. Ended in failure.

"Oh, _crap_," I said, looking for a towel, but all the ones I had were drenched completely. I dragged my hand down my face and turned to her. "I'm so sorry."

Seiko made that face where she pressed her lips together and raised her eyebrows, a sign of something I picked up to be akin to annoyance. She flipped her hair out of her eyes with her jerking chin, only to let it fall back in her eyes after that. I moved carefully over the wet tile so I wouldn't fall and injure myself physically or humiliatingly, only moving quicker when I got onto the carpet of my bedroom. I ran to my closet and dropped the towel quickly, pulling on a pair of pants fast so I could lay out the wet towel on the floor as a path for her to my bedroom. When I returned, I did as I said for her, watching her gently shuffle her bare feet over the ground to make her way there. How would I explain stealing the towels from everyone's room, leaving an I.O.U in reminder, to clean this up? Seiko padded into my room. She flipped clumpy hair out of her face. I dug a maroon shirt out of my closet and tossed it to her. "Here," I said, "put that on…" I rubbed my eyes. "Jesus …I'm so sorry for doing that."

"Don't apologize to Jesus," Seiko said, and without warning began to peel off her sweater. I whirled around before I could glimpse any more of the neon pink bra, erasing yet another one of those weird memories from my brain, like when Cole "forgot" to tell me he was dropping his towel and scarring me for my life. I squeezed shut my eyes. "_I'm _the one who got wet."

"Sorry," I said again, facing my closet. "What exactly are you doing in here, anyway? I was in the _bathtub." _

"I _know. _I came in to freak you out _after _you got out, but it looks like you're a little too jumpy for a game of Peek-A-Boo." She slapped my back with her wet clothes. "I'm done, Princess. You can look now." I turned, watching her run her fingers through tangly black locks, lip pursed. Wet clothes dangled from her hand. My T-shirt was big enough to swallow her whole.

I swallowed, tearing my eyes away. "Wow, no Twinkies? Have I graduated?" I asked, taking her clothes for her and putting them on top of the wet towel, then folding them up in one bundle, my own overreaction taking its toll on the bathroom. I crouched. The mirrors, the walls, _everything _was wet. This would be a hazard to clean up.

Seiko padded up behind me, poking my back with her bare foot. Upon looking over my shoulder, I saw that she had painted her nails purple.

Wait, _Seiko _painting her _nails? _Did she hit her head or something? Since when does she do that?

I didn't say anything at first. She put her hands on her hips, staring at the scene. "Looks like a job for the Ghostbusters," she said. She evaluated the subject. "There's a lot of dirty water all over the walls. And ceiling. And just about everything else. We need one of their sucky vacuum thingys just to get this all out!"

"I can't believe I didn't hear you come in," I said, standing. I carried the folded towel the way that a stork carries its baby bundle, dropping it in my hamper and letting it fall. "Normally I would've heard you."

Seiko raised her eyebrows, looking at me in lack of belief to that. "I'm not a freakin' elephant. I'm living with _ninjas. _Maybe I've picked up on a few moves." Seiko's raised brows were now challenging. I shrugged.

"Maybe." My voice was too quiet. _That's not the challenging look she normally gives me, _I thought, moving past her into the bathroom. I rubbed my neck. _She didn't stick out her jaw. The look she gave me was…flirty-challenging. _

"Well, this isn't something a little cooperation can't fix. What were those class pets that sang about teamwork all the time, that flew around saving all these baby animals in danger?" Seiko moved in beside me, hands on her hips. I watched her out the corner of my eye. She was leaning backwards a little bit, posture reminding me of a coiled snake rearing back before it struck, lips lightly puckered. _That's not how she normally stands, _I thought, narrowing my eyes but keeping my lips sealed of my observation.

"You mean the _Wonderpets?" _

"Yeah, those."

I remembered Seiko once telling me about what they watched in Sunnyside. _"They NEVER play cartoons because they bore the staff. They play—get this—COOKING CHANNELS. That way, all the inmates can be taunted by the weapons they want being flashed right in front of them! Talk about hospitality!"_

So how would, if _Wonderpets _had come out a year and a half ago, Seiko know about them if she was stuck in Sunnyside, where they played no cartoons?

I looked down quickly at her right hand. The cartoon thing might've been just coincidence, and the painted nails might've been the result of her boredom (which I can't see EVER happening) and the posture might've just been to flirt with me, but there was no doubt anymore after I saw the blank skin on the back of her hand.

No Eye.

In a second, I had her pinned underneath me, slamming her hard against the tile floor. She grunted over impact. I took her hands and slammed them against the ground, wrists bound by my own tightening fingers, my nails digging into her skin. She glared at me hatefully. "That's no way to treat a lady," she breathlessly said through her teeth, unable to breathe since I was sitting on her.

"_Where is she?" _I growled.

"Where is who?" Sweetly, Maya batted her eyelashes, a dead giveaway. Seiko would've vomited before she ever did something like that willingly.

I grabbed her by the throat and rolled off of her, throwing her across the room. She slammed into the doorframe and cracked it. Falling into a heap, Maya made a sound like a rubber duck would if you threw it at something, only hers wasn't anything like a squeak. She rolled onto her back as I stalked towards her. Before reaction time came, I already ripped off a piece of the wooden doorframe and aimed it at her after she jumped to her feet. She stood against my bed. "You look incredibly handsome angry," she told me, lips faintly puckered smugly again. She tousled her wet hair.

I jumped at her, bowling her over and stabbing her in the arm with the wood. Maya cried out and pushed me off of her, knocking me into the bedframe. She reached out and yanked a drawer out of the desk in the corner, then hurled it at me. I moved out of the way just in time for it to splinter against the wall with everything inside of it erupting in volcanic replication through the air. Maya's arm seeped blood.

"_Where's Seiko?"_ I demanded, hurling the chunk of wood. I ran to grab another piece just as Maya grabbed the fold up chair at the desk. I moved out of the way when it was hurled, but it caught me in the shoulder, knocking me over along with it. Both of us hit the bedside table and had it come crashing down on top of me, hurting me badly. I could feel the weight suffocating me.

"I wish I could tell you," said Maya. "But I can't. He made sure I wouldn't be able to." I pushed on the weight of the bedside table to get it off of me. Maya appeared before my vision, dancing with her hands, grabbing onto the edge of the wooden banister and hauling it off my body with immortal strength, letting it crash loudly to the side somewhere. I grabbed her by the ankle and tugged. Maya screamed, coming down on her back and cracking her head against the ground. I quickly shuffled myself up so I completely held her down with my aching body, feeling the rupture of being cracked down on by a table already mooring my capacitation. With her arms punned down by my forearms, I leaned close to her face, making sure she could see me completely. Maya held her breath and looked—not hateful, not pleadingly for life, but as if she was trying to tell me something.

"_What did you do with her?!" _I snarled_, _pushing more of my weight down on Maya. She didn't seem bothered, but her breathing was more labored than it was when she was cracking jokes about talking animals and Ghostbusters. My heart was dipped in angst, and worry for Seiko; wherever she was, I was imploring that she wasn't in the brink of danger. I pushed down on Maya harder. _"Where is she?! _Tell me!"

Maya's voice was raspy and winded. "I can't tell you," she said. _I'm gonna make you tell me then, _I said, and just as I started to move for a wooden piece, she kowtowed, "But I can show you."

Suspended over her, I looked down, but before I could answer to that, Maya lifted herself up underneath me, leaning forward—and her mouth touched mine. Something in my head flew apart. I closed my eyes in not a passion for the kiss but for a second's worth of images that shot through my head, pictures that I never would've imagined I'd come to see, all in the perspective of someone who sounded like Seiko but had a voice too light to be Maya's. I watched what could've been a movie montage of Seiko's life in sped-up bits all climax into a point before they all burst into white, leaving me to watch a real-time image of what _she _was seeing right now.

~  
_"Please," Seiko begged, drymouthed, and I could see through her eyes that she was lying on something very white. All around her were feathers, blankets, huge pillows, a fortress of white things. Seiko's head was turned to her cheek on a resting place of a something I couldn't see. I saw her look down at her hand, clutch a handful of the bedsheets so hard the white bones in her knuckles showed through her natural creamy skin tone. Blinking, the images around her muzzy, I could hear a heavy heartbeat trying to pick up its pace. She raised her head. _

_A mirror across from her represented her lying on a grandly outsized bed without her body language saying that she had the strength to move; she was limp, a ragdoll. Her back hair was really messy, with flowers tangled rather than woven in her black mane, and to my blushing horror her body was naked. From this distance I couldn't see many details, but that's right where Seiko's eyes looked, and I saw her grimace. She turned her gaze away. _

_Everything was so white. The sheets, the everything. Everything I could see was just _white.

_"Don't…" Seiko whispered, rolling her head to the side. That's when I saw my spitting image standing at the side of the bed, a white sheet wrapped around my body like a malformed toga, my hair shorter than it was right now and invariably messier than I would leave it. In my hands was a short glass syringe with a pointy needle that I flicked to make the bubbles go up. My eyes were a dark blue, and I looked indolent, hardhearted, uninterested even. It came as a shock to see myself standing there. What was I doing? Why was I there?_

_"Oh, don't fuss," said the me from this vision. I crawled onto the bed beside her, a fox's smile on my face. I sat in front of her, flicking the needle one more time, and put a steady hand on her thigh as I worked open her legs. The real me wants to look away, but I can't, because I don't have eyes anymore and I'm looking through Seiko's. "It won't hurt more than a prick. I think I've spread enough of my seeds inside of you for at least one to fertilize an egg, don't you think?" The disgusting me smiled capably of knowing what he was able to do, and pointed the syringe at the soft spot on your hip beside where your leg connects to your body. Seiko shook her head. _

_"Kaos…Please don't do this. I hate begging, but I'm begging you. Please don't… I don't want to be stuck in Pandemonium Bastion with you forever. I don't like you. I want to go home." Seiko sounded so scared. So scared. It was hurting me to listen to this. Not only that, but it told me that she was with Kaos_ _and _where_ she was—Pandemonium Bastion was a place I'd never heard of—and if she can give me that much information, she's smarter than she lets on. _Say something else, baby, _I begged, urging again. _C'mon. Tell me something else.

_"Go home to what? A brother who hates you and a hopeless, silly affection for a ninja?" Kaos (he had to be taking my form) laughed quickly. "You really are just like all the other girls that came here," he growled. "And here I thought maybe you were smarter than them."_

_"I've lived longer than them," she said through her teeth, trying to be strong. _You're so brave, _I thought. _Talking to the enemy so calmly. So brave. _"It tells you something."_

He _snorted. "Yes, it does," he agreed, giving her a plastic smile. "It tells you that I like your body so much more than I liked theirs." He put his thumb on the syringe, bringing it closer to her. Seiko jerked, but he held her down using a force stronger than any kind that I would've been able to use on her. Kaos smiled into the eyes I watched through, making my skin crawl. "Hold still. This will be quick, and then all you'll have to deal with is nausea, vomiting, mood swings, cravings, spotting and cramping…Nothing too serious though, hm, darling?"_

_Seiko turned her head as the needle went in, the clear fluid inside being pushed into her body. She quaked under the fear that I know I would've felt miserably if it came to something this horrifying. I watched and listened to her whimpering, to the look of her body shaking in a way that came only with crying, and I knew that I needed to pull out of this vision soon so I could go find her. I had a name of a place, maybe some kind of weird gothic restaurant or something in town, and was ready to draw out when she started talking again—after a minor comment from Kaos._

_He drew out the syringe. "There. Now it won't be too long, love—an hour, TOPS."_

_Seiko groaned. She wriggled uncomfortably to the tune of some unfelt pain that I couldn't feel, but watched her vision blur at the prospect of Kaos sitting at her feet, entertained by the idea of exactly watching her squirm, buggy under his microscope. "My brother…will kill you for this," she slurred._

_"Your brother doesn't love you," Kaos flatly told her, sounding cold and reserved. Seiko stared at a pillow. _

That's not true! _I wanted to say, but did I know that for a fact?_

_"Maybe not, but I know that when Lloyd finds out, he'll kill you for sure." _

Of course I will, _I thought. _I would always do that for you.

_"I doubt he'll find us here. We're between dimensions, love; he could never get to us. He doesn't even know where the portal to the mid-mension is! And adding to that, he doesn't know you're gone!" _Thanks for basically telling me everything, you loser.

_"Though heezzah…Twinkie," Seiko sounded more and more drunken by the second. Her eyelids didn't want to stay open. "He izz smart-ur than he…looksss."_

_"Keep dreaming, love. Keep dreaming." _

I reeled out of the kiss, removing my lips from Maya's promptly after I was kicked out of the vision. She looked up at me, pretty much bored at this point, with a slight pinioned finger wave that was supposed to be funny but was not. I stared down at her en route to the answers trying to connect themselves in my head. _Pandemonium Bastion…between dimensions? _How is that possible? Had he created a way to be stuck between not one or the other in maybe a teleportation device gone wrong that accidentally altered him into part of a safe space between dimensions?

I needed to get to Sensei. He'd know what to do.

I looked down at Maya. She was a problem child, very much, but there were pieces of good in her that I'd also felt when she was becoming the missing link to my brain-bond with Seiko. Since both Seiko and I had a Mind's Eye, I think that's what allowed me to see into her head with a little bit of help from Maya—I don't know why I apparently needed her to be the missing piece to the puzzle of our lives and show me that through a kiss, but she was helpful.

There's something else, though, too. Though I was mind-linked to Seiko, Maya was also a key part, and I saw parts of her mind as well through the skirts of Seiko's memories. Parts I don't think she wanted me to see, but I did, and I can't believe what it is I discovered. It seems so unrealistic but also so very...it makes sense, in a way, that I never would've believed if you'd told me; I needed to see it to believe it.

Maya doesn't hate Seiko. She never has.

She has been looking out for her, all these years since she's known her after killing her mother and turning Cole into a vampire. Maya felt a fondness for the little girl that she never had for anyone else, and out of interest and worry did she act for her, just doing the little things that normally didn't seem so big but fixed things later on. She'd save her from walking out into oncoming traffic (which I found out Seiko did a _lot) _and on the playground when she was young, she didn't have any friends to play with, so Maya would come out and play with her, just not dressed like Maya. She'd wear something different. For a long time, Maya's hair was dyed brown and cut to have brisk bangs so Seiko wouldn't be afraid of her. She'd entertain her until the bell rang, and she'd watch Seiko run into the building, waving goodbye to her new friend. Maya asked Seiko not to tell Cole about her, so she told no one of her new secret friend. Every day, Maya brought lunch to school for Seiko so she wouldn't starve (Lou didn't pay for school lunch and he didn't pack her anything.) She taught her how to play hopscotch and how to braid her hair, and how to catch toads in her lawn. She taught her how to ride on a scooter, and how to write an email, and how to paint her nails (even though Seiko didn't like it.) She helped her learn the tough things in school, especially multiplying, and she showed Seiko just how to get revenge on the mean kids. She showed her how to tie her shoes, how to have a really good mud fight, and most of all, how to protect herself when it felt like there was no one in the world who loved her.

Maya loved Seiko like her daughter.

There was something that Maya referred to as the "Toby incident" in her brain that reminded me of that dream I had about Cole telling me about Seiko's scary past. When Seiko became obsessed with the idea of this boy loving her, because she was scared that she'd grow up to become unloved. Maya was scared about what was happening to her little girl, and when Seiko began cutting herself, Maya drew the line. She Compelled Toby to do everything Seiko asked and be positive about it. _Maya_ was the one who helped Seiko put all those pineapples on Toby's doorstep. Then, when the infatuation went away and Toby was old news, Maya could breathe easy again. Until Lou hit Seiko and knocked her head against the wall.

Maya got so angry that she came to Lou's bedroom and drank his blood, forcing him to watch in a mirror. She let him live, of course, for Cole, the more minor of her loves at the time. But she Compelled Lou to cut himself on the legs every night, one cut for every year that Seiko had been alive. She told him that if he _ever _laid a hand on her baby girl again, she'd kill him. Then, he put Seiko away in the asylum because he was not only afraid for his daughter, but afraid of the new friend that his daughter had made and wanted to _protect _her from Maya, knowing who she really was but too scared to tell Seiko the truth. Maya kept an eye on Seiko from the outside. One day, she came across Jamie, the second boy that Seiko had become obsessed with, and a couple of friends. Jamie was making fun of Seiko with them.

So Maya slaughtered them all.

Maya continued to keep an eye on Seiko from outside of Sunnyside, but that was the perfect place for Seiko to be hidden from the outside world; Maya already knew that Seiko was the Yin, long before anyone else did, and to keep her in there would be safer rather than let her out by Compelling a couple of humans. Then, at some point, a threat to Maya entered the town, and she was forced to leave Seiko there, but not before Compelling _Seiko _to forget that Maya ever existed, so Seiko wouldn't be traced backwards if the Bounty Hunter after Maya happened to look back to Seiko for questioning.

When Maya mind-linked herself to Seiko the night she killed Lucia (the mother) and changed Cole, she didn't do it to use as leverage against Cole in case he did something against Maya. She did it because she liked her and wanted to keep tabs on her, so no matter where Seiko was, Maya would always be able to find her. If she got lost or taken or something, it was a good plan. Like an internal GPS set to the 'Seiko' setting. (The link is sort of the reason why they look so much alike.)

And the reason why Maya is so mean to Seiko now is because the Original vampire _knows _what trouble that she, as an old creature, has caused, and she doesn't want Seiko to want to be around her, gaining 'bad habits,' since Maya has such a history of really-bad-things-that-I-didn't-get-to-see. It's messed up logic, but it makes sense.

This whole time she was hurting Seiko's feelings was not to actually hurt her.

It was to _protect _her.

I stared down at Maya, and everything had to be written on my face in huge black Sharpie for her to read without glasses and automatically know what happened. Her eyes narrowed. "What did you see?" she growled. I opened my mouth to answer, but there was one tiny problem with that.

Cole had walked into the room at the sound of all the hullabaloo, along with Zane, Jay, and Kai at his heels. He stood at the corner or my bed and stared down at us in shock, like we'd grown four heads each. With the both of us, Maya-pretending-to-be-Seiko and I laying there on the floor, me on top of her without a shirt on and her laying there _with _my shirt on, and a whole bunch of screaming and a big mess in the room that looked like Spinjitzu just tore up the place, resting in this position after a kiss, I was sure that something in Cole's head was turning the _wrong _way. Maya winced. "Oops," she said, instants before Cole's angry storm arose. I met her eyes briefly.

**_"WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!"_**


	76. Chapter 76

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX:  
**The Future Becomes Part of the Present

Noel paced the length of the kitchen—or, kitchenette, if you wanted to get technological and obnoxiously accurate—with the dining table stuffed into the corner, expecting everyone to enjoy its spacious room when really there was hardly any to sift through. Wu, the writer of his summons, sat on the bench to the table, his bamboo staff across his lap in a patronizing warning that there was that heavy ick in the air that was making Noel feel overbore. He adjusted his fitted attire. Heat didn't bother Noel, but he felt a little suffocated. Maybe it was the fact that the air here was a lot different than it was in the Underworld (more likely than not that was the answer.) It would take time to get used to the difference in the invisible material that kept him alive better than his mother's womb.

"It's easy to tell that half-breed is part human," said Noel, arms behind his back. "Before you think about asking me how I know, I would give yourself a second to question my authority and knowledge, for I know more about this than it seems you ever would in your entire life." He stopped pacing to look at a photo in a frame, pasted on the wooden wall right next to a collection of cupboards. More likely that it was put there to add a little 'pizazz' to the room that didn't really come with the simplistic picture, Noel saw the faces of five of Ninjago's greatest heroes that his father seemed not to be able to tolerate, even if one of those people came to be a son of his—that was not as big a thought in Elathan's head as Noel thought it would be. Smiling, grinning, and laughing, the five of them all stood together with their hands and faces dirty of a battle they'd just finished. Noel's eyes lingered on his brother for a long moment. Kai had made sure not to even associate with Noel in the slightest sense, not so much as anything, when they'd come to this place of 'holyness' and 'peace' that was a failure to the fact that the new King of Hell was standing in it. He itched his upper lip thoughtfully. Kai was holding onto the shoulders of the blue one—what's his name again?—who was holding the shoulder pouldron of the robotic white ninja, the latter standing untouchingly beside the vampire, and the Green Ninja (_ughhhhhhh) _giving a thumbs up to the camera. Quite the bunch, weren't they?

Noel turned on his boot heel back to Wu and Misako, now sitting by Wu with her hand conspicuously on the bench next to his (they were so obvious that a nine year old could've done better) and Damon Garmadon standing with a broad chest blocked by crossed arms, looking serious. Noel flippantly didn't give him any emotional connections and gestured with his hands upon speaking. "There is no demon in existence that has bone in its nose. I know for a fact that, after studying for three years about the Shadow Dancer species, their noses are made entirely out of cartilage. No bone. Cartilage, and maybe some muscle for when they wrinkle it, but of course it's just cartilage." Noel stepped forward, pacedly looking at his feet. "When I kicked Kaos in the face, his nose cracked. Your nose won't crack if it's all muscle. It would barely hurt much to a total demon. Aside from his unbeatable powers with mind control, that was my first _physical_ giveaway that he's a half-breed." Noel stuck up his hand, lifting a second finger to show them he had another reason. "My second was that he had human hands. Half-breeds, if crossed with humans, typically have that."

"How do you know he wasn't just using his power to control your mind?" Misako asked.

Noel snorted, holding up a _bitch please _palm. "No one, not even the most powerful half-breed I've ever come across, would walk around during the daylight with _that _stupid of a getup on. A mask and a cloak? He looks like he walked out of the vintage set for a _Frankenstein _spinoff gone wrong." The King shuddered, reaching to rub the back of his neck. "No one of his magic is stupid enough to dress so poorly his outfit could've come from _Goodwill _unless his power is drained."

"If it's drained, how does he get it back?" Wu asked, drumming the staff with nervous, wrinkled fingers.

"I'm assuming he gets it in some sort of psychic form from humanity." Noel itched is hair. "Typically, that's where all the real stuff comes from if you're a half-human. I mean," Noel duck-faced his lips, "if you're going to take your source of power from demons, you won't get very far; demons lack luster and emotion and the true brain activity that it takes to give you one granule of health back."

Damon nodded. "Now we know he's taking something from the humans. But what could it be?"

Noel pursed his lips, clucking his tongue underneath the roof of his mouth. "Well, usually, it's something that tires the humans after he drains them of it. It could be stamina, emotion, life-force—there are a number of things that he could be taking from them without harming them. It's like being a psychic vampire. He attains it through 'sucking' it out of their bodies, but if he chooses not to take all of it, he won't actually kill them. Heard of any random deaths lately?" He asked, clapping his hands together. "That would be a giveaway."

After exchanging glances, the three grown-ups shook their heads. "No," they said in unison. Noel snapped his fingers.

"Then he's not killing them for some reason. It could've left us a trail to his hideout, but I guess he's being more cautious." Noel put his fingers to his lips. "Afraid of us, I suppose. If it were me, I would've left a _huge _trail for you to come find me so I could kick your asses. But, as it were, I am not on his side."

"If they get power from humans, how do their powers work in the Underworld?" asked Misako, but Noel wasn't able to quickly laugh at such a dumb question when Damon beat him to it promptly.

"You can't get a half-breed of human in the Underworld, Misako."

"Oops."

Noel thought this discussion was getting to some of the deeper details in things about Kaos that personally, he didn't know. How would he know just what Kaos's motives were, other than to rip open the Gates without his King's consent onto unleashing hell Aboveground and Belowground? Noel knew in his heart that handling that kind of territory—two _entire realms!—_would be more difficult than he ever could imagine. And he didn't _want _to.

"Master Wu," said a soft, almost breezy voice that Noel first brushed off as the tisk of someone exhaling, but when everyone else reacted to the filled doorway, Noel actually found out that his little 'exhalish' voice was actually a person who was nothing of a breath and whisper, though the voice was eerily close to that. Noel thought, for a second, that the white-robed figure was a woman, with long snowy hair in a pulled back ponytail and a set of long black eyelashes. But after looking at the heavy, billowy white robe over the dark gray under-kimono, he realized this was a _male. _The sandy colored eyes flickered towards him barely before moving into the room, caging something in between cupped hands. Wu stood up.

"Yuki," he said. The man called Yuki—it was creepy that he was, and _don't_ hold this as anything more than a descriptor or you'd be on the hit list, more beautiful than the maids back at Noel's castle—did a proper bow. "What is it?"

Yuki straightened, holding out his hands. "I did not mention this before," he said, "because I needed time to think about what my previous assessments have shown me when I download data quickly about Danielle."

"Download," Noel reiterated mindlessly after him, cutting off Wu's words. Yuki turned to him, and that's when Noel fully saw the way that his eyes _focused, _LITERALLY, on Noel's face. They zoomed in on him before unfocusing themselves back to something that looked slightly human. _Oh, wow, _Noel thought. _He's a robot. _"Go on." Hand wave completed his interruption.

Yuki turned to Wu. "I have not been very trusting of her as of late, thinking that something about her was off. She does not strike me as someone who could be reliable. Only today when she returned here after you all left were my suspicions confirmed."

"Suspicions?" This time, it wasn't Noel being the idiot repeating Yuki. It was Misako. She stood up beside her husband to ward off suspicion about she and Wu, earning not a look from Damon, who probably knew all about the affair. _How amusing. _"Why can't we trust Danielle?"

Yuki opened his hands. There was a small, ring-finger sized bottle with a round bottom and skinny neck, a rubber stopper plugged into the throat. A reddened liquid was only half of the taking for the round bottom, meaning someone had taken some of it. Noel wasn't at all phased by this. _What, is that how humans do shots of whiskey now? _Wu reached out and took the bottle, observing it against the light. "She left it here, most likely by accident," said Yuki.

"Well? What the hell is it?" Noel demanded roughly.

"I processed the ingredients." Yuki stood up. "It's a poison."

Misako gasped. "Did she poison someone?"

"I do not know if it had been used before she got here or if she did it while she was here. It is impossible for me to tell." Yuki looked at the dreadful mix of things that would stop the beating of someone's heart, stop the dreams and future of someone that had a plan for themselves, surely no vagabond. Wu looked at the red liquid with intense processing wrinkles coming to his face. Noel couldn't relate to this; he didn't know who Danielle even was, so to find himself stunned would be… Yeah. Not happening.

Yuki looked nervous, looking at the floor. "I have a dreadful fear," he said. "She mixed in a very practical ingredient with it, Master Wu. Something that is not tolerant with humans."

"What is it?" Wu asked, letting his arm sink down. His eyes met Yuki's. When the robot didn't respond immediately, it was Damon who stepped up, grabbing the shoulder gruffly of the white-wrapped angel-robot-thing, and glared him in the eye.

"Yuki, _what is it?"_

_…_

Bokuyo tottered along the carpet, singing "Mary had a Little Lamb" on his way across the floor. In his arms, he cradled tightly the bear that his mother had given him, Falafel, out of scruffy love and contentness with the world. He felt happy right now. He didn't know why, but he felt better than he had in a really long time. He couldn't wait to share the feeling with Mommy.

He'd had his afternoon warm milk already. It was sloshing around in his belly as he skipped! He'd been hobbling into the kitchen with this very teddy bear in his hands, looking for Yuki so that somebody could make him his milk before he laid down to take a nap, but actually, he found an unfamiliar blonde woman with it already in her hand. Bright blue eyes had gazed out at him with a friendly smile. "Yuki is busy," she'd said quietly. "I made it for you instead."

Bokuyo admitted that her warm milk tasted better than Yuki's. Maybe she put sugar in it or somethin', just for him. It was too hard to take a nap after he'd had some of it, because he felt too awake, an' he didn't think Mommy would care if he didn't take a nap jus' for _one _day. He ran on his little legs for her room, just up the path. He _la-la'_ed the whole way there.

It looked like there was an altercation goin' on in the hallway. All the Ninja were in front of Mommy's room, and hysterically, the Green Ninja was freaking out, trying to get everyone to listen to him. The other four boys stared hard at him. "—have to get her!" he cried uproariously. Bokuyo trotted closer.

"Hi!" He said brightly. Everyone turned to him.

"Ah, jeezzzzzz. It's that kid." Said Jay. Bokuyo stopped in the hallway.

"Where's Mommy?"

…

Yuki ran a hand over his hair, looking constipated and choking over his own words. Damon shook him one more time to instill some sort of wake in him. "Yuki!" He snapped. "WHAT IS IT?"

"BIRTHRIGHT!" Yuki cried, but not loud enough to stir anything. "Birthright is extremely toxic to humans! It's the more-attainable equivalent to Black Widow venom!"

…

Bokuyo rubbed his nose. He felt something warm begin to drizzle out of his nostril and onto his lips, tasting of warm metal that was not very sweet. The back of Boku's hand was stained red by the blood coming from his nose. Oopsies. "Mai bad," he giggled, showing his teeth. He saw Mommy appear from the bedroom. "Hi Momma!" He waved at her. A feeling of choking washed over his throat, and Boku spluttered, breathless coughs coming from his throat suddenly. It wuz weird since he never felt-ed that before, but now, he coughed loudly, and sprewing from his lips was a fountain of blood that he screamed at. Red, shiny, and thick, it poured down his chin in a waterfall like tears'es, slapping against the floor, and his body felt too heavy to hold up anymore. Boku dropped to the floor.

"_Bokuyo!" _It sounded like the Green Ninja. Bokuyo fell in his own pile of blood, the sound much like when you played in the thin water at the beach without goin' out too far to touch. His little blonde palm tree on the back of his head soaked in the stainant of his own blood, more coughing out of his mouth when he saw _him, _Lloyd, jump into his vision. Arms laced underneath his body, and Boku was lifted into the air. He felt like a cinder block. His belly rolled, and he puked blood again. "Hold on!" He said, and hearing the others close behind him, Lloyd started to run down the hallway. "_YUKKIIIIII!" _He screamed bloody murder.

Boku grabbed tightly onto Lloyd's shirt with tiny fists. He felt lightheaded, dazed. The lights on the ceiling were too bright. Too bright. He closed his eyes and coughed a bubble of bloody spit. "Daddy," he whispered, frightened. What was happening to him? He tugged on Lloyd's shirt. "Daddy, I scared."

Lloyd jogged down the stairs. The others were quick at his heels. "It's going to be okay," he said in wind. "I'll help you."

Boku's head felt like it was going to explode. "_Yuki!" _yelled a chorus of voices. Boku's eyes blinked once. "Daddy, I scared," he whispered again. "I really scared."

His eyes rolled in the back of his head.

…

Yuki sped down the hallway, throwing open the door to the infirmary. He yanked Lloyd inside after him. "Hurry!" He chorused, trying not to feel as scared as he really was feeling. Feeling like that wouldn't stop this from happening.

Lloyd set Bokuyo down. Yuki immediately ran to his cabinet, hurriedly tipping canisters and bashing over small bottles, looking for something that clicked in his mind as an antidote for Birthright. The Birthright was of the same consistency that was with the venom of Black Widow's kills, and somewhat a dimmer version of the Arachnaeus that killed Yuki so many years ago, although very, very lethal in a short amount of time when it was given with the same ingredients Danielle had put into her poisonous killer. It wasn't as strong; there had to be an antidote to Birthright consumption. He rummaged quickly through what he could see. _Bitter root…No. Valentine's Locks? No…damnit! What do I _have? Yuki slammed the cabinet, hearing glass shatter, and ran back to Bokuyo's side. "Drink!" He advised, holding out a small vial of _Malea's Ladder _juice, tipping it onto Bokuyo's lips, but even propped up it wouldn't go down his throat. He just spat it up all over his shirt with the rest of the blood crusting his body. It didn't look real to Yuki. He _refused _to believe it was real.

Boku vomited again. Lloyd grabbed onto his tiny hands, holding them close. "Daddy," coughed Boku, tears in his eyes, "is there a heaven?"

The doorway was filled with people. Yuki ran back to his cabinet, looking again for something easier to swallow. The sound of Seiko rushing into the room made Yuki glance over for no more than a mere second's run out of importance to find something for Bokuyo. "Bokuyo!" she screamed, running and collapsing by the bedside. Yuki grabbed a small berry out of a jar and ran for Bokuyo.

Wu shuffled in just as Yuki was furiously trying to cram a berry down Bokuyo's throat. The little boy shook his head. "Don't want," he groaned. Yuki clenched his teeth.

"You're going to _die _if you don't eat it," he snarled, and threw it at him. It bounced harmlessly off of Bokuyo's blood-drenched chest and onto the bed beside him. Yuki picked out another one. "Let's play a game," he begged, holding it in his hand. Boku rolled his head to the side opposite of Yuki. "I'll throw it to your mouth, and you catch it, like the popcorn game we used to play. _Please, _Boku."

Seiko was crying lightly. Lloyd was horrified. And Wu, slowly coming to the bedside, reached out to cradle the chin of the student that he fonded over most. Boku's face went deathly white. "EAT IT!" Yuki told him. "EAT THE BERRY!"

Wu looked up. "Yuki," he said gently, but Yuki couldn't listen.

"You _have _to eat it," Yuki told him, feeling pent-up fear and emotion clogging his throat. "You _have _to!"

"YUKI."

He looked up, his eyes suddenly crying tears that he hadn't shed since Mitsuko died, and he saw Wu slowly shake his head. _He's not going to stay, _he said. "NO!" Yuki shook his head. "He can't die!"

"Yuki—"

"Daddy," Boku's lips were repainted over the dry blood with a new coat. Lloyd stroked back the bloody hair from Boku's eyes. "Will I…go to heaven?"

Seiko began bawling. Lloyd smiled faintly. "Of course," he said, trying to keep quiet the tremble in his voice. "That's where all angels go."

"Will you and Mommy and Yuki come visit me when you're ready?" whispered the little boy.

Yuki broke down to the floor. He grabbed his hair. _I can do something, _he thought, trying to make himself get up, but the whole world was blocking his airway. He choked on all the world's problems, on all the poor, the hungry, the dying and the sick. He almost vomited up the graves of those who had suffered that and passed.

Wu's voice came from above. "I'll be waiting for you on the Other Side," he softly said, calm.

"Daddy, does heaven have…"

Yuki stopped breathing.

Bokuyo never finished his sentence.

Yuki grabbed tightly onto the metal bars underneath the hospital gurney, the metal in his knuckles showing with how tightly he gripped it. _I could've saved him, _Yuki thought, clenching his teeth. _I could've kept him alive. _There were so many things he could've done, but instead, he'd let him die here, with his mother and father sitting beside him, his favorite teacher reassuring him, and his best friend on the floor because he couldn't watch. Danielle may have poisoned Bokuyo, but Yuki was ultimately the killer. He didn't save him.

"He's _fading," _said a voice that didn't register with Yuki.

"Sensei, he's disappearing! Why is he disappearing?!"

Yuki jumped to his feet. The voices were right; Bokuyo's body was starting to become transparent, the blood-stained sheets visible underneath him. _No, _Yuki reached out to grab him, but his hand went through where his torso had been. His legs were already gone. All that was left was the ghostly white face of Bokuyo, drenched in blood, before a second later fading away into the after image of what could've only been a dream. Yuki stared.

"Because you can't have two of the same person existing in one time frame," whispered Seiko, and Lloyd looked at her, astonished. She stared at the empty bed. Yuki griped the sheets, trying to find the imprint of a body, but there was nothing. His throat closed.

…

Lloyd stared at Maya. She knew that Wu was staring at her for the wrong reason, probably inferring that _Maya _was pregnant with Bokuyo now because he didn't know that Maya actually was Maya, but it was true to its word. She'd seen exactly what Lloyd had in the depths of their minds: what Kaos implanted inside of her _definitely _was the seed for the blueprints to making a baby exist. Even if Boku hadn't really been her son, she could hardly watch him die, calling her Mommy when it wasn't real. It should've been Seiko sitting here. But Maya had let herself become captured and Compelled by evil into doing wrongly, moving against the girl she remembered watching grow up all her life. This was Maya's fault.

She stood up, wiping her nose. "You saw it," she said to Lloyd. His eyes widened. "Bokuyo exists _right now_. And that's why we have to go save Seiko."

"Uhm…What?" Maya turned to Jay in the doorway, frowning. "Why are you talking about yourself in third person?"

Maya looked at Lloyd. "Explain this," she said, and turned back to Yuki. He was staring hard at where Bokuyo had been, but also apparently listening through his fog, because she saw it register in his eyes. "Yuki, he's not gone," she said, and walked around the confused Wu (who was moving towards Lloyd's new explanation to everyone else) to put her hand on his shoulder. "But I'm going to need your help getting to him. Can you help me?"

"You're a vampire," Yuki whispered, sensing her state from her touch.

"But I'm not a monster," Maya said tenderly, and she leaned against him, showing him that he had her support. Yuki's face sweated tears. "I need you. It's our healer against their witch." She spoke of the Team Evil and Team Good thing that seemed to be all this place was about. "Will you do it? For him?" She gestured to the empty bed. Yuki crumpled the sheets in his hands, contemplating nervously. This had to be hard on him, and Maya took his hand in hers, trying to make him _feel _the truth underneath them. _Don't you remember me? _She thought, trying to get him to understand, but Yuki was oblivious. Of course he was. He'd never remember her. It was so long ago. He'd probably already moved on.

_~*  
"You're such a gentleman," she whispered, brushing her mouth against his, grooming his pale hair out of his eyes, the color turned silver by the moonlight showing through her cottage room window, and touching his cheek affectionately with her leg wrapped around his hip. He smiled, long lashes closing as he leaned down to kiss her throat, and she felt the sensations of heat run along her body, turning her warmer than she had ever felt before. She pulled his face up to kiss his mouth, wrapping both arms around his neck, and felt the pound of their love carry her through a field of clouds that she'd never felt touch her before. Ever since her family had been murdered, she'd never been able to trust, to love anyone, knowing that anybody could be their undercover killer. But when she met _him…_she started to feel again. _

_"I love you, Yuki Akamatsu," she whispered against Yuki's mouth. She didn't know where the healer boy liked to hide in the daylight hours—he only ever revealed to her that where he was, a certain person kept a strong eye on him to make sure that he didn't wander off in pursuit of a butterfly, but assured her it was a male, who was emotionless, and they shared no connection at all. It was only when moonlight fell across the Fireman's Circle that Yuki could come to her, but she never to him. He was very adamant about keeping her away from the angry people he lived with. For a healer, she thought that he needed to be surrounded by loving people, people like her, and often begged him on nights like this to come away with her. Let them both run. But he said he needed to keep out his duty first, and fantasize about running away later on. _

_He was the only man she ever truly loved. _

_Yuki reached out and touched her cheek. "I love you too, Mitsuko," he whispered back, and kissed her. She felt her human heartbeat run through her chest, felt his hands lace her back and pull her closer to him.  
~*_

Maya tightened her hand in his. She was the Mitsuko that Yuki had lost all those years ago, slaughtered down by Zane's army of impenetrable, indestructible Clockwork angels that looked avenging when they cut people down in the mid of night. After her death, Katherine had been the one to find her body, and tell Maya (named Mitsuko at the time) all about murdering her family, about murdering her brother and her mother and her sister, before telling her that the only reason Maya was alive was because she was the first vampire ever created. An experiment destined to live forever. The young, carefree, loving Mitsuko, the Mitsuko shot down and murdered by the Reckoning with Yuki's child in her stomach, had died along with Maya's memories of those days, and she'd forced herself to leave it all behind and rename herself Maya Kiko to hide. Many years later, she'd found Seiko, and fallen for the little girl's charm that was so much like her own…

But underneath the vampire face, Mitsuko was still inside of her somewhere, and Maya was afraid to let Yuki know that the girl who killed to survive was the woman he'd loved all those years ago, standing right in front of him. He'd think she _was _a monster. What if he hated her? What if he never wanted to see her again? Holding her hand now, Yuki looked down at it emotionlessly for a bare second and then slipped his fingers out of hers, detaching the contact with the girl he knew as a stranger. Maya deflated, but took a deep breath. Now wasn't the time to tell him.

But she still loved him. She always had. And always, always, _always _would.

* * *

**All I gotta say is: I told you Maya wasn't all bad.**


	77. Chapter 77

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN:  
**Good Old Birds

Kyon's orderlies were all over his new mother-to-be the minute he wrapped her in a fine silken white robe and walked her outside of the bedroom (the trick to opening the door required his control skill that only he, the one Kaos on earth, had) for a little stroll. Seiko's dazed eyeline couldn't stay on one thing for too long, clutching her stomach, sweating bullets. She looked completely sogged in her own bodily juices. And Kyon was more than proud to look over to her, arm wound around her waist, to find that there was already a tiny bulge appearing underneath her clothes. He escorted her from the long white hallway's trance into the splendor of the Heart of Pandemonium Bastion, Seiko's moans becoming more apparent as she needed her hair to be pulled away from her face. Happily, Kyon responded with a gentlemanly offering of tying her hair out of her face with a small rope he got from his cloak. He took more pride in the idea of having accomplished something so devastating to the land of Ninjago with just such a simple act; his heir would ultimately be the result of mass destruction according to the land. He helped her into the Bastion's Heart and showed her the opulence of the stained glass windows, the chandelier, the gathering area of plenty stayers. He found, enfolded in the concentration of a game of chess, Fang and Ash boringly entertaining the untouched chess pieces by staring at them rather than actually operating them to their full functions with the use of their fingers. They both looked up when the door came open.

Fang raised an eyebrow. "Ouch," he said, nodding to the bulge underneath Seiko's shirt.

Kyon knew that her breathing was hard, trying to understand the mix of things that were happening to her, centered somewhat around the mixture of months she was undergoing in such a short amount of time. Her body was dialed to fast-forward and she was starting to age right before his very eyes. An example was the length of her hair. If he looked deep enough, Kyon could watch her bangs slowly beginning to become longer; her face was losing the traces of baby fat and turning into a more filled-out version of what she'd become. Seiko bent herself over with her cramps, her sudden growing pains, the heavy problem that came with doing what she was so quickly in only a matter of seconds when this actually needed to be drawn out by _real _time. She groaned.

"That looks like it hurts," Ash said.

"And you all are assholes big enough to stand and watch her suffer." Kyon looked over to see Danielle stalking down the hallway, picking up her pace so she could come meet Seiko. Slowly coming further behind was Jace. Danielle rolled her eyes at Kyon (she had no idea who the 'Kaos' she looked at really was) and wrapped an arm around Seiko's waist, despite the mini smacks that Seiko's hand gave her.

"You…brought me here. Get the hell away." Seiko clutched her stomach. Kyon knew that it was coming minutes before it was to be, the peak of the common symptom to pregnancy being vomiting. She held onto her mouth, looking for a place to do it, spying Kyon's cloak and taking it in her hands. He was actually very impressed with her resourcefulness that also gave way to her not being the stupidest girl that Kyon had ever slept with. She threw it on the floor before vomiting all over it—at least she contained the mess—with sobbing to be a crucial part of the whole process, discounting when Danielle dropped to her knees beside Seiko and pulled the shaking mother into her arms. In some sort of _Bonding 101 _class that Kyon missed, there had to be a girl code that said even if you kidnapped someone and sent them off to their death with a villain who possibly would overrule the Earth, you still assisted them when it became their time to have a child that was produced and given by the most powerful half-breed ever bred. Kyon rolled his eyes at the motherly whispers of Danielle's aged body into the ear of the teen mother's. "Let me make you some tea and get you a bucket. Sit you down somewhere."

"I don't trust you," Seiko said. She shoved Danielle off of her and crawled away, stomach bigger than it was before. _I love a woman with spark, _Kyon thought, smiling. Danielle rolled her eyes.

"Right now, I'm all you have. Besides, I know what pregnancy feels like, and—"

"I wouldn't _be _that word if it wasn't for you switching teams and deciding to rebel against us," Seiko growled, and crawled over the floor, trying to scoot as far away from Dani as she could get. "I don't _need _you."

Jace ran a hand through his hair. Kyon noted a look in his eyes that said _total responsibility _better than a faulty child who was unaware of how to give a proper lie. He reached out a hand for Seiko, but she slapped it away. "Get _away _from me," she growled. "I want to go _home." _

Kyon thought she was being cute. "This IS your home," he told her, opening his arms to the magnificence of everything that the bastion had to offer a girl of her stature, certainly someone that could do well with a little pampering and trust to be around people that had the same negativity as her. She could definitely use some friends. Seiko whirled and glared at him.

"I'd rather live in Sunnyside."

"Too bad." No longer tolerant of this, Kyon went to grab Seiko with both hands outstretched, but she was a sly girl, and he should've noticed that. She vomited on his feet at the last second.

Fang and Ash burst into laughter. Kyon clenched his teeth. _You did _NOT _just do that, _he thought, staring straight ahead. He'd known she was a devious little shit, but he didn't think she'd go this far. Then again, what did he know? He forced a smile on his face just for her liking. Seiko wiped her jaw with the back of her hand and smugly upturned her lips at him in some sort of wicked, backstabbing smile that he assumed offense was supposed to be taken from. Instead, he stepped out of the inner…artwork…that came from heaving, and took in a patient breath. _She only needs to be alive long enough for me to take my heir. Just wait that long. _

"Cute," he droned monastically to ward off the accomplishment Seiko might've been feeling, and snapped his fingers at Jace. Ash and Fang continued to laugh. "Clean this up."

_"Me?" _

"No, the guy standing behind you." Kyon waved his hand irritably. "Yes, you. I want this cleaned up and a bath run for me. I feel extremely disgusting at this point. And _you." _Kyon made a scene of looking at Seiko. To be the villain, there were certain requirements when it came to looking intimidating, especially in your first cameo when using it. Of course, Kyon had the luxury of borrowing several other glares from hundreds of other beings so he'd never go a day without having an interesting backsplash in his eyes. He'd never actually tried to work on his glare before. Giving it to Seiko now was actually the first time he'd ever shown anyone just how scary he could be as himself—or how _not _scary he could be. Seiko wiped her chin with the back of her hand. "Just give birth. You'd better be done aging by the time I get back out here."

Seiko curled her lip at him, breathing heavy. How is it that Kyon still wanted her, even if she was sprawled across the floor in front of her own vomit? He bit his tongue. "I don't take orders from _anyone," _she looked him up and down. "Not even you."

Kyon, again, admired that drive that kept her going without needing to feed off the reactions of other people. But right now, not being in control was _killing _him. "Pity," he said. "What a fucking pity."

…

"I never got to see where exactly the portal came out of," Misako said to Damon, fidgeting with her fingernails under the intense microscope of being stared at by both her husband and her son, her son being the one who was practically bouncing off the walls with anxiety. As a little boy, he was always extremely farfetched when he got excited about anything. That covered the good and the bad letters to that word. He could never sit still when he got into one of those impatient moods, in a way that Damon also resembled—it was like they were related somehow, when blood was not of the preferable essence. "They blindfolded me so I wouldn't see."

"Oh, swell," Jay said as he walked past in the wide of the hallway, holding in his arms many sharp weapons for the tirade gathering outside. "That certainly puts us at an advantage. Rah, rah, go team!" Jay disappeared through a doorway.

Misako always thought his humor was adorable in the way a mother humored her son's friends, but that one was a little hurtful. She really _didn't _know. They covered her eyes when they exited the portal knowing that she would remember details like that, and kept her from confessing any of her findings to her colleagues, which helpfully needed the information _now. _Lloyd had already told the whole story to all of them. The part that horrified Misako the most was the theory that her son inquired about when he mentioned Kaos had spoken of 'spreading his seeds.' She was worried, but that also seemed painstakingly logical when they discussed Bokuyo's faded body. Misako was no expert on how time worked—Wu was the only one who remotely knew a little bit about the dangerous waters you treaded through when you messed with the watery time—but each of them agreed that the reason Bokuyo's body disappeared was because he existed in this time frame already.

"C'mon. You gotta know _something. _Think, Mom." Lloyd took both of her hands, staring into her eyes completely with those huge blues of his taking over her mind just by the looks of his sincerity. As his mother, she picked up on his traces of _panic _for the girl that he'd spent time in the Underworld bonding with. He was _this close _to slipping into irrationality. "Think really hard. Please. I need to get her back before something terrible happens."

Misako blinked hard. She loved her son more than anything in this whole world, so much so that it hurt sometimes to love him. She wanted everything that was best for him: all the happiness, the love, the friends and affection that could make him the luckiest boy in the world. The thing that ravaged him was the significance of the emphasized prophecy he'd have to fulfill, and not only that, but to protect Ninjago to his preeminent mental fitness, delineated by the back-breaking course of training that he'd been exercising for years now. It would take time to be able to give him all those things. He was too harassed by his surroundings to be able to settle down and give actual thoughts to life, things that were about jobs and money and schooling and bills. He didn't have time for that anymore. Misako wanted to give him that yet was dissuaded by the more important things he needed to keep an eye out for. But looking at him and seeing the desperate desolation begging for her memory to kick in, she knew for a fact that the one thing he wanted right now was to get his friend back safely.

Misako sighed. "Just give me a minute," she said quietly. "I might know something."

…

"Zane, you're not helping at ALL. The point of teamwork is to _help out." _

Zane still was having a hard time making a total recovery from his heat issue earlier. Cole supposed maybe it was something that had something to do with him being the ninja of ice, but he had more questions than answers. In broad daylight, Cole Mitsuhide took his scythe and swung it around, familiar with how it felt to wield such a powerful weapon between two gloved hands. The weight of the scythe reminded him of what he had at stake.

_I knew something was off. _Maya had been doing bad impression of Seiko, but Cole was at his most superficial right now, and there was no way he would've been able to see how badly Maya was doing if all his awareness was on Rie. Seiko was one thing that Cole had not spent much time keeping an eye on—when he really should've.

He felt guilty because he failed to protect the people he was responsible for. He might've gotten everyone back safely, but had Kaos purposely plucked Seiko out because he knew that Cole had a hard time trying to care about her? Cole shook his head and brought the scythe down against the ground, then pulled it back up and cut the air again. Maybe if he'd been more attentive, he would've seen this coming.

Kai swung his sword across the lot, getting a feel again for the way it felt to use his katanas properly. Cole took a minute to step back and watch this. He knew he also needed to keep an eye out for Kai, who emotionally looked like he was about to crumble underneath the poker face that he wanted everyone to see. His emotions, right now, were the weakness that he'd be bringing into battle with him and that could cost them the fight. Cole would have to monitor Kai when they found their way out of here; he had already watched Zane try to _hold _a shuriken and knew that the clueless ice ninja was hopeless. Jay seemed up and ready for the fight. Thankfully. No one knew how this would go down if only Cole could have his head in the game.

They tested out their much out-of-practice fighting skills in the middle of the monastery's courtyard, preparing themselves for the rescue after storming the 'Pandemonium Bastion,' wherever that was. Kaos's engrossment with things that were related to the properly spelled word 'chaos' were starting to pile up as the time went on.

Speaking of anti-heroes…

"You all look so serious," said Noel, stepping out of the monastery in a pair of jeans and a black shortsleeve. He looked like any other guy did on a normal day, but underneath the surface, he was actually this big-bad scary dude from the Underworld that held the power to kill every one of them by opening his hand. Every reason for Cole to be nice to him, every reason not to be. There were so many conflicts going on with it that he couldn't really tell what the better choice could be. "I'm shocked."

"Sorry," Jay said lamely. Cole was the only one who snorted. Kai and Zane were off in their own little worlds on the other side of the courtyard—definitely not bothering to listen to anyone. Poor guys. Taking another practice swing, Cole tried to think of a reason why Sensei had asked the Underworld's ruler into Ninjago to help defeat _another _one of the Ninja's enemies, which would've totally made sense if Noel wasn't technically an enemy himself. Cole frowned at the blue tornado of Spinjitzu twirling around the arena, spiking past Kai and his katana techniques as well as Zane and his butterfly-enthusiasm. He just might as well add this to the list of things that would never, ever make sense in the whole history of being a ninja—a list that actually scrounged up a few nominees.

"Remind me, again, why _you're _here," said Jay, spinning a set of nunchucks lazily to show off. The only way to describe how Noel walked up was in the way that a lion slowly circles his prey before he decides that it will be dinner, except Noel didn't circle Jay but rather took on the walking persona of the gimmick. Secretly, Cole was glad Jay asked it. He was too lazy to ask it himself.

"I hate the Shadow Dancers just about as much as the next guy," Noel said. He shrugged. Take it or leave it, but Cole thought this guy was a little bit of a joke. Seriously, if you're going to out-of-the-blue show up and reconcile your affiliation with the same disinterest to an annoying con of demons, you might as well send everyone's a heads up before you appear on their doorstep and kill the messenger. "And I'd much rather keep my ruling boundaries in a place where they are _contained. _Up here, it's too chaotic for me to keep a close eye on." Noel turned over the aim of his voice on Cole, an eavesdropper from two feet away. "I like to rule my people where I can _see _them."

Cole didn't know if that was pointed at him in some two-dimensional way or not.

Kai held his katana at his side, breathing heavily as he came to Noel. Cole watched the love-struck, shot-down, razor-bladed hothead flip black hair from his eyes and tie up the loose ends with a rubber band after handing custody of his silvery blade to Jay. He remained impassive. Cole could sense that was just to hide his inner conflicts. "You better not sabotage us in _any _way," Kai threatened in a dark voice. He sounded a little like the old Kai that Cole knew, just more…angry than usual.

Noel held up both hands for speculation. "You have my word."

"Your word means nothing to me. Just don't screw this up." Kai snatched the sword from Jay's hand moodily and turned back to his practice, leaving the three to stare after him. Furtively, the leader knew that Kai was trying to suppress his feelings while they pulsated inside of him, and instead of facing them he turned to antagonism to cover up his tracks and give him something to apply the emphasis to. Cole's number one rule was putting his team first, no matter the costs; he needed to talk to Kai at some point, to get a better joinder for the things running through his head. He already sort of knew them, but Kai, being the hot mess of the crew, could easily damage their plans (as of now they had none) and main covert mission if he got too emotional. The aspect was diverted with Nya when she had been kidnapped by Skullkin in the early days of Kai's ninja training. A little pep talk should set him straight, shouldn't it?

Jay seemed to be intent with the training, but his eyes kept wandering back to the monastery, where somewhere inside Nya was trying to figure out what was going on with Rie swaddled in her arms. Cole was already pretty sure that Jay wanted to go in there and be with her rather than sit out here and do a bunch of flips around the rocks. Still, he was devoted to his job, and would put it first before he put his love life…Maybe?

And then, there's Zane. Zane, who looked like he wanted to take a nap on the ground to hide the boredom. Zane, who was staring at the anthills and liking the scenery. Zane, who was taking a stick and poking the worm crawling over the cobble rock. Zane, who was just too human and forgetful to know what this was all about.

Cole's gang definitely needed a tune-up, and _not _the kind with off-key singing and flash-mob dance moves. But how would he help them get their motivation back if they were too concentrated on something more important to them than this next mission, assuming Sensei ever gave it before Christmas rolled around?

There was only one person Cole could turn to now. This was going to take a lot of gut-swallowing and probably some horror at resorting to this afterwards, but if anybody knew how to get people moving, he knew _just _the person. Er…doppelganger.

…

"I had been hoping to save this for a better time," Wu sighed, walking into his bedroom slowly. He felt the weight of how serious this had gotten from zero to sixty in a matter of one story told by his nephew, and overall it was becoming more and more like a horror story by the seconds that came crawling for Father Time's beg. Lloyd had seemed extremely upset when he was telling everyone about the vision he'd had—and the fact that Maya was Compelled under some unutterable hex by Kaos that wouldn't allow her to say anything about her body-swap, or any piece of information she knew about Kaos's conspiracy. As much help as she would've wanted to be, she couldn't say. To think that a behemoth as impish as Kaos, making a child inside of just a young girl, was disgusting to every one of Wu's senses, but he was pretty sure he knew why the half-man had done it. Seiko's power would be somewhat inherited by her heir; and with a creature like Kaos, as powerfully inclined as he, to be the father of that already-mighty child would make the child even _more _robust and violent than before.

Wu felt awful. It made sense why Bokuyo was so able to shape-shift into a crow: his father could create illusions, and Bokuyo took some of that breed from his parent into his own distinguished gift. He was, after all, a half-half-breed. Or…something like that. Shape-shifting was the next rung down from being an illusionist. Bokuyo had both of which that gathered into the people around him seeing a crow, maybe when he never was really a crow at all. Wu had never been able to ask. He'd only known that, going forward in time and meeting the eyes of Seiko as a grown woman, trapped in her apartment in Tokyo, Japan, he'd felt a little like there was more to her son than would ever be let on.

Until now.

The wardrobe in the corner of Wu's bedroom was still locked, and he produced the key that would open it. The doors creaked as they opened. Wu had gotten this special from a sale with an old trader whose wife was a "psychic," and in their gypsy-lifestyle they often found old keepsakes and items to sell at their store. He liked the idea of keeping his precious things inside of something equally as old, with a tale that may or may not have been as interesting as the autobiography of Wu's life. He found the seven blank robes hanging on the bar where he'd left them. _Each will glow and conform to their Master, _his father had written to his sons. _When near, you will know who its true Master is by the way it glows faithfully around him. The suits will transform when they are sported by the correct being. _

Wu was still slightly convinced that one member of the Seven was Seiko, simply for the power that she radiated and held—not aware of the extent to how far she could go with this, and for that he could either suffer or be grateful to, just in case she had to illustrate her ability to Kaos in fine color. By not knowing it, was she theoretically a danger? Though he may have already figured out one of which, he was still not quite sure of the last.

He knew that neither he nor Damon could be one of the Seven. Both had come close to the fabrics and no glow had come from what was laced in fleece from rams at the Golden Peaks. Who was the last wearer, then?

So confusing.

"I would've liked to keep these a surprise," Wu murmured, slowly taking down each blank kimono and folding them, much easier to carry that way. He was on his third set when he heard a light knock on the wall. _Aye, _he thought, a little happy for someone who could help him, and saw just the reliable friend he needed. "Hello, Rikku," he said to the brother. No reaction came out of him.

"Would you like help?" He said monotonically, coming into the room. Wu smiled thankfully.

"If it isn't too much trouble." Wu pointed to those hanging up. "Could you take some of them, and do as I am doing?" Wu motioned to his stack. Rikku nodded and moved to work.

Part of Wu hoped that the last of the Seven negligee would start reacting to Rikku's touch—he saved both of the last two just for him, just in case something happened. He was sorely disappointed to find that there was no alteration in the fabrics upon Rikku's touch, eliminating him as the possible last of the Seven warriors destined to help the Green Ninja in the Great Battle, the last of the end. Wu stroked his beard thoughtfully.

_So it isn't Rikku. _It was a setback, especially because he'd been hoping that for Zane's sake there would be family there to show him that there was always a brother to lend him a hand. There wasn't a worry in Wu's mind that Rikku might turn to the dark side. He knew that boy just as well as he knew Zane, and even though trusting the people around him was a little cliché with all the sudden team-switching happening to all the people he delegated with his friendship, Wu had faith in Rikku's allegiance and commitment to his brother. Nothing would change him.

Rikku followed Wu out his room with folded suits in his hands, Rikku carrying four and Wu carrying the last three. He needed to take these to his Ninja for them to put on. As he'd said before, each suit, when connected to their Master, would conform and personalize just to that person—how that worked, he'd have to see to find out.

In a hallway to the outside, Wu passed Damon and Misako. He didn't eavesdrop on their hushed tones.

After coming out on the porch and stepping into the yard, Wu saw his students hard at work attacking dummies that Jay had dragged out of the shed, all except Zane bringing their A-game. It looked to Wu that Zane didn't understand what was happening. He needed to show him a little about the ropes to using a shuriken before he even considered wrapping out the suits. He tilted his head at his most childish of Ninja without the boy seeing him. "To lack is to be sightless. To be sightless is to find strength in what you _do _have." Wu stepped up to Zane, tucking down the three suits under his arm so he could show the wide, blue-eyed neophyte just how to hold them. "Fortunately, you do not lack anything, Zane, but your memory; find strength in what you _do _remember, and that will be the key to unlocking the truth."

Zane threw the shuriken directly into the painted red dot epitomizing the heart of where the dummy's real organ would be, if he happened to have one. It sunk into the potato-sack outer layer. "I am grateful for such advice," he said, "but I am afraid that it is not my memory that makes it hard to hold these. It is my heart." Zane shook his head, pressing his hand to his forehead. "I feel as though I am missing something very important, and my heart is telling me to follow it, but I am not sure what I am supposed to follow. It is difficult to be entertained by such a duel with inanimate opponents when I feel as though I have something missing."

"Maybe it is your memory your heart is talking to you about," Wu pointed out. "Perhaps it is time to remember."

"Yes, but I don't know a trigger."

"A…what?"

"A trigger," said Zane. His hand gesticulated to Jay and Cole, side by side and beating up their own sacked foes. "That is how they remembered."

Wu reached out and placed a hand on his student's shoulder, earning a displeased frown from him. "I don't think a trigger can be sought out and easily found, Zane." Wu let him go. "It will come when it is ready to be discovered. And when you find it, you will know." He softly gave him a smile. Zane smiled back.

"Students," called Wu, gathering the attentive gazes of his finely trained pupils, glistening with the visible confirmation of their physical preparation for the battle coming closely soon. Kai wiped his forehead of sweat, while Jay's cheeks were flushed red, and Cole could only flip hair out of his eyes. They all looked the way they had when he'd come out here in the mornings after meditation, finding them all awake and sparkling with life in their multicolored eyes, ready for the stimulating inspiration that wanted to be released in a brawl. He was proud of each of them. But…one thing. "Where's Lloyd?" He asked, searching for the familiar blonde head.

"Here!" called the voice from the porch. Lloyd was jogging down the steps with Nya coming behind him, her arms cradling her new baby. He walked towards the gathering. "What's up?" he asked, trying to sound collected, but Wu saw through the veneer into the agonizing window of his soul.

"I have your new uniforms," Wu introduced. "These were given to me by my father, hidden in the Temple of Light on the Dark Island, each for the warriors destined to complete the Seven."

As the Ninja came closer, the uniforms in the arms of Rikku and Wu began to do just as the instructions his father wrote said they would do. A light glow started to radiate from five of the Seven twinsets wrapped in the towers of arms. With Rikku following his lead, Wu released his grip on them with premature instinct that they would begin to rise from his hands and float towards whom they chose, the blank cloth doing just that, measuring the air as the Ninja watched in amazement—and in slightly shaken faces.

Noel wandered closer; Rikku tucked away the last two Seven suits closer to his body with his hands as their taper. Nya just came up to his side when each of the Ninja's new regalia started to float.

Wu had known that the show would be captivating, but that was the beginning of a great understatement.

As each of the pieces hovered in the air, the Ninja they belonged to started to turn and rise from the ground into the oxygenated barrier between solids and gases, their bodies starting to glow slick and solid. Wu recognized the true potential immediately. Zane's eyes started to glow, and confusedly, he rose into the air, but opted for following the lead and example of his brothers rather than squirming disturbingly. His body became a transparent, light shade of icy blue, see through to the sky around him. A pillar of the same color shot from the ground underneath and enveloped him in the tall cylinder that acted as a beacon for those miles and miles away. The suit disappeared inside of the pillar along with him, and Wu could not see anything after that.

Beside him, Kai turned into a giant ball of flame, his body swamped inside of a flame-licking beast of motion, the fire morphing its shape like the a firepit's inner flame. Wu was worried about him using up the amount of colossal energy it took to support true potential, activating it _twice _in one day. Would that affect his performance? Kai had barely had time to recover from the last time he used it. Despite the worry, Kai's body went a slick, clearly translucent, fiery orange, and his suit disappeared inside of the adapting fire.

Jay became conserved inside of blue electricity, running around his whitened see-through form. Eyes bright blue, the ninja of lightning became subject to many shots of lightning coming from the ground and the clear sky, zapping him so frequently that Wu lost track of him inside of the attack.

Cole turned the shiniest out of all of them, silver eyes turning bright and glowing. Light reflected off of every part of him. Swirling orange and dark green circles dove around him like the energetic particles circulating atom displays. Wu saw the sky behind his most polished Ninja. Intensely enough, those very circles diving around Cole were the ones that shrouded him.

Last, but not least, the true potential of his nephew was a water-like enchantment of green gelatin that moved around him, languid just like Lloyd himself, as he tilted back his chin and arched the willowy back. The movement of the liquidic green orb stowed away the suit.

Wu had never seen all five of them amid each other, their true potentials hot and novel. He thought there might be a negative reaction from the elements being gathered in the same area, but there was not so much as a hairy mishap, making Wu feel a little more confident in what could come. He watched the amour of their spirits, trapped in their element, as their new suits changed them into modified versions of themselves.

Kai was the first to drop. The flame ball dying out, he fell to his feet lightly, but dropped to his hands and knees without being able to support himself anymore. Zane slowly drifted, feather-like, onto the ground beside him, on his back. Cole cascaded downwards with grace and elegance, but that act was cancelled out by the fall backwards. Jay tottered on his feet when they touched the ground before he didn't have the power to work farther than a couple of seconds, record time, and collapsed. Lloyd drifted onto his knees before falling sideways against the pavement.

True potential was very hard to sustain. It drained one's body of most or all of the energy provided, leaving them crippled for some time, but _time _was essence-induced and could not be wasted after this. Rikku bent to help his brother to his feet, dusting off the new attire of his. Wu was impressed with his father's craftsmanship:

Zane wore a long white robe that skirted the tops of his shoes, showing a triangle of bare chest just where both sides to the slip-on met, and attached by a silken obi. Around the long, dangling sleeves of Zane's elbows were a fare of grey wrap to pin down the extra cloth. Underneath, a pair of flexible grey pants became extinct at the tops of a pair of snowy calf-boots. He had light grey gloves on. When he wobbled on tottering feet, Zane's long robe swayed.

Nya helped Kai up first before she assisted Jay. Kai found his footing in a pair of sneaker-like shoes, exceeded by dark red wrap that extended all the way to his knees. His pants were slightly bulging with extra fabric (purposefully) as it did on the arms of his upper kimono, wrapped away into dark red at the elbow. A continuous, thick wrap of obi kept the two pinned sides of his shirt together, revealing only part of his upper chest before severed halfway by a black undershirt. His black hair had been stolen from the ponytail and let fall around his shoulders. He put a hand to his forehead, fingers black gloved.

Jay's shirt was strapped down by a long leather sash over his shoulders and around the back of his waist, loosely clasped by a similar russet colored belt tied around his hips. His shirt was a deep cobalt that matched his acquiescent pants, chopped off into men's combat boots underneath. His shoulders were covered down to the wrists by glistening silver metal, bordering onto his own pair of black gloves.

Cole's arms, on the other hand, were bare, bulging with muscle to ward off attackers. His hands were covered by fingerless black gloves that held the earth dragon emblem across the back of the hand. On his shoulders, two metal pieces came jutting out past his shoulder line into points—shaped nothing like the pouldrons that Wu had them wear in their old suits—and attached by two intercrossed straps that ran around in an "X" shape over his chest. The top part of the "X" also revealed his sliver of chest that all the other boys had. His torso was covered by a hard, rock-like constituent that was shiny and black, and looked like if it were punched it would break your hand. A large double belt with a thick buckle wrapped at his hips, two small silver chains attached to it. His pants, at the thigh, were slightly baggy and stopped above the knee, where thick silver wrap took down into his moveable black shoes, like Kai's.

Lloyd's suit was a deep shade of gold with green accents like his thick obi, leaving a little bit of extra material hanging in two tails off the knot and the fingerless gloves on his hands. His forearms and calves were wrapped with an off-gold textile. Around his neck was a pendant, visible against his exposed skin, starring the symbol of the yin and yang, as was printed against the backs of his gloves.

"Whhoooaaa, look at us!" Jay exclaimed, spinning in circles as he looked at himself. "Sweeet! But since when did I turn into Katniss Everdeen?" He pointed to the bow-and-arrow carrier on his back. Nya chuckled.

"It's a sign that you should man up," Cole said, fixing his gloves to comfort. Jay gave him a look that Cole just raised his brows passively at. "C'mon, man. She's manlier than you, and she's a girl."

Kai blinked furiously, trying to make his eyes focus better. Wu took a step forward. "Are you alright?" He asked.

"Yeah, just trying to make my head stop pounding. No biggie," he gave a reassuring smile to his teacher. Wu breathed a sigh of relief. At least he wasn't having double images.

"I look fantastic!" Zane did a little dance, and pirouetted for his friends to see.

"Awesome!" commented the others.

"You all look stupid," said Noel, leaning against one of the dummies and rolling his eyes. "I do believe that getting suits does not make you any cooler."

Jay turned up his nose. "_You're _one to talk about ridiculous suits!" He retorted of the earlier Prince of Darkness attire.

Noel shrugged. "Since you all refuse to accept that I'm not entirely evil, I have to insult you _some_times, don't I?" He said, and smiled.

Wu noticed that Kai kept sneaking glances at Lloyd, but his nephew was trying not to look at him. He'd already had the incident explained to him, and he felt terrible for both of them; Wu was never aware that Kai had taken an interest to his family member—he didn't think that it was something he had to keep a close eye on, with all those rowdy boys living together; he thought the fangirls would be the issue, but apparently, romantic interest was also sparked between a few of them. Wu didn't know exactly how Lloyd felt about it, but he sensed that Lloyd wasn't entirely okay with the idea of male love to his best friend.

Zane was looking at the emblem on the back of Kai's glove when, upon glancing into the sky, he must've seen something interesting, because his face lit bright enough to spark all of Ninjago City on Halloween. He grabbed his brother's shirt and tugged on it eagerly like a child would. "Look!" He said, and pointed into the sky. Everyone peered up. "A bird!"

The dark shape of a flying bird came closer and closer as it swirled closer to the Ninja, making a particular squawking sound that made Wu have false hope that it was Bokuyo, but was mistaken. The Falcon swerved around Zane's head intimately. _Hello, _it appeared to say. Zane laughed and held out his arm, where the bird perched. Wu couldn't imagine what Zane was thinking. He didn't think that the boy remembered the Falcon—to be honest, it had been far too long since Wu had seen it to think about it recently—in the way that the Falcon remembered him; Zane's awed expression painted that picture for him. He gasped. "The bird landed on me!" he rejoiced.

"He is yours," said a voice, and everyone turned to see Yuki walking from the monastery towards them. "He's always been."

Zane's eyes widened. "_Mine?!" _ He reached out and petted the bird. "Really?!"

"Yes," confirmed Rikku.

Yuki stopped at Wu's side, leaning towards his ear while the Ninja looked more interested in welcoming back the falcon than to pay attention to what was happening between the two robots standing aside. Wu kept his gaze ahead while Yuki leaned close. "_There are more wormholes," _he whispered in Wu's ear. _"I checked the screen in the bridge as I walked by. No one was in there to see it, but the alert's been going off for a while."_

Wu inhaled quickly. Another wormhole? This couldn't be! But Yuki said…wormhole_s. _As in, more than one. "How many?" he asked.

"Four," Yuki murmured. "In Birchwood, Fireman's Circle, the Sea of Sand, and Ninjago City."

Wu tried to look impassive for everyone else, but inside, he felt like crumbling. More wormholes had to be planted when the Ninja were fighting Kaos. _This isn't good, _he thought, wetting his lips. "Those are all places connected to the Ninja," Wu whispered.

_"I know." _

"Lloyd was born in Birchwood Forest," Wu ran off. "Zane was born in the Fireman's Circle. Jay grew up in the Sea of Sand. But…what about Ninjago City?"

"_Cole's mother gave birth to him there," _Yuki said. _"His parents lived there before they had their daughter and moved away." _

That would be called "The Good Old Days" to Cole, the time before Seiko came along. Wu clenched his fists behind his back. This wasn't well. They had to find Kaos's lair, but—that was impossible, since if the portal was hidden where no one knew, they couldn't find it. Maybe they'd have time to go look at the wormholes before they rushed into anything irrationally. Wu nodded. "Thank you," he whispered to Yuki, and the healer bowed.

"SENSEI!"

The chorus of his students' voices made him jump. He looked to see the Falcon flying off into the air, and Lloyd excitedly running towards his uncle, a light burning intensely under his eyes. "Sensei!" he gasped. "The Falcon knows where the portal is! He can take us there, into the next dimension!"

Noel, who had been standing beside Wu and leaning against the heavy dummy, turned and gave a forced, tight smile to the man who summoned him. "Well," he said, reading Wu's thoughts. "How convenient. And I suppose you have a magical weapon that will demolish Kaos into smithereens once you get there, too?"

"Yes," Wu said, and watched Noel snort his way into the trap. He patted the King on the shoulder. "You." The smile on Noel's face disappeared. Without another word, Wu walked away, leaving him to think about that one for a while.


	78. Chapter 78

**Wow. I can't believe how close to the end this is getting...**

* * *

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT:  
**For Baby  
_~Yin~_

After Kyon disappeared into a doorway with my vomit as his shoe polish, I stood up painfully, my bones aching and bloating stomach inflating—pretty much a balloon to be sold at a fair. Balloons don't come cheap there, either, so if I were to be sold, I'd be _expensive—_but that's not the point. I could _feel _my bangs growing further and further down my face as the seconds went by. They weren't growing at superspeed, but let's put it like this: if I stared at them, I could see them slowly inching towards another centimeter gone and my hair needing a massive haircut. I could already feeling it brushing against my back. Whatever _he'd_ put inside of me was an aging potion that I've gathered is for the purpose of making me have the, um, you know, the…the baby in my stomach earlier than the recommended (and desired) nine month aging process.

I also had glued two and two together. The face of Bokuyo flashed in my mind. I hadn't known him long, but I had this feeling that he'd been specifically weary of a certain Twinkie, which actually made sense to me—c'mon, he's Twinkies. I was weary of him too. Anyway, I had looked at Bokuyo for a long time the other day, trying to put his features into a much more _hopeful _place than in one of Lloyd's kindergarten pictures, but all I could locate was a more childish version of Lloyd Garmadon looking back at me, more outgoing and less serious than the actual Green Ninja I had thought was his father. The belief had revolted me to think that I ever became romantically involved with Twinkies McSnickerdoodles (I had actually seen the way that Kai looked at him the day we arrived, and his eyes totally said he had dibs) had made me want to gag, but over the past couple of days, I realized I'd been looking at him a lot differently than the judgmental pall I thought I used on him. Not admitting at _all _that I had sappy-sack feeling for him, despite the cruel trickery Kyon had used on me to see the blowout make-out session I had with Twinks. I refused to let this go down like it had with Toby, and if I thought the way that I was thinking now, I'd end up reliving the past I tried so hard to abandon.

Standing on my feet, the world faltered around me, but I splayed my hand over my stomach to show Witch Bitch, the Bizarro, and most of all, _myself _that I would do whatever it took to ensure that both I and my…the baby…got out of this alive. Assuming Kyon didn't eat us first. I never, not once in my life, have felt the desire to say that I ever wanted children—I _hate _kids. I hate how annoying they are, how they spend all your money, and require you to take _care _of another human being. Half the time I can't even take care of myself. I always thought that I'd be the girl living by herself at home, not looking for passion (romance is gross) and not looking to start a family of my own. My own family experiences were _nothing _like the way I wanted them to go, and even if I had the willpower to make sure that my kids never had that same cruel awakening that I did, it would be too much of a responsibility to lay on my shoulders. Like I said, keeping myself alive half the time is such a fuss. I don't like children, never have, and didn't think I ever would. Not until now, when all my life's choices were being piled on top of me in just a couple of hours. All the choices I was supposed to decide upon were supposed to be dealt with as they came, and not by force. And now…all this had been taken away. My opportunities. Everything I could've thought about as I grew older was being given to me _now. _

I might blame it on Twinkies. I mean, meeting him was by far the worst thing that ever happened to me. He opened my eyes to a world of danger, of really stupid and horny super-desperadoes that were set out to destroy the world, insane princes, creatures that only existed in Mythology, magical powers, strange fruits that turned you into comatose Snow White, Ninjas, robots, doppelgangers, witchcraft, _slavery—_all of those things being shown to me were definitely his fault. By getting involved with that sucker, I was therefore turning myself over into the Twilight Zone, specially equipped with full-custody papers for the writers of the drama to sign. By knowing him, I pretty much screwed _myself _over for the rest of my life.

But just because I can't stand children doesn't mean I'm going to let a bunch of evil psychopaths try to take me and the life form floating in my stomach _out. _(And not for dinner and a movie, either!)

I spun on the guy who looked like Jay and elbowed him in the gut. I knew it hurt him, 'cause he grunted, but I'm slippin' on my A-game; he had my back pinned against him quicker than I knew what was going on. "Don't pick fights you know won't end well," he pleaded in my ear. I jerked my shoulder.

"Get off!" I said, and brought back my leg. I nailed him between his own walkers and he dropped off me like a rock, a meteor plummeting to earth. I looked at Witch Bitch and watched her angrily get defensive over him.

"Seiko, don't you fight!" she told me. Do you think I listened? Hell, naw. I yanked off his shoe and chucked it at her. (I was a little skeptical of the way the anti-Zane and anti-Cole were just playing checkers, like nothing was going on over here. Good for me, bad for their buddies; were they legally blind?) Danielle smacked it away and gave me a look. Come to think of it, Witch Bitch looks _nothing _like her old self, when I stare at her long enough. She looks…human. And like a thirty-year old. I really do wonder about that…

"Seiko, can you please just let me help you?"

"HA! Trusting you would be the _second _worst decision I've ever made!" Grabbing onto the groaning anti-Jay's collar, I dragged him backwards with reserved strength by the tail of his shirt. What I was hoping to accomplish, I couldn't tell you; but it made Witch Bitch _incredibly _upset. She came at me.

"Seiko, you need to eat something, otherwise your baby will starve," she said, breaking me out of my Jay-napping trance. It was her fault I got this fucking thing in the first place, and now she was trying to give me good parenting advice? Are you _shitting _me, you bitch-off-your-ass? She jogged over to me in a pair of heels. Typical for your average diva. "And then he'll die, and you don't want that. Ash and I made you something to eat in the kitchen; please, Seiko." Why did she sound like she cared? Why did her eyes look like she wanted me to do it?

"Why do you give a shit?" I demanded, and picked up the shirt of Jay again. He groaned, both outwardly for pain and another for _not this again. _I held him by the collar with both hands. "Since when do I trust you? You probably put something in it that's some kind of toxin that will kill me."

W.B. shook her head sadly. "You're right. You don't trust me. And that's fine. But I'm telling you this: If you don't do it, that baby"—she nodded to my slowly-aging belly, already poking out further than it had before, but not totally finished transitioning yet—"_will _die, and both you and I know that isn't what you want for him." My hand crawled over my belly defensively, dropping Jay on the ground at my feet so I could cradle him, the baby, away from the beautiful monster before me. "Let me help you."

"_I won't let you touch him_," I snapped before I knew what I was saying. I clamped my lips shut. When I impulsively spoke, my words usually never came out like _that. _They normally were an insult. W.B. nodded.

"And I won't," she promised. "But you need to eat. Let Jace be and come with me so you can feed the baby. With the way he's growing, you're starving him for too long. Come on."

I didn't trust her as much as I had seconds ago, but I knew that, in my heart, she was right, and the sake of the baby I carried was reliant on _me. _Without me, he wouldn't survive, especially not without the food he needed. The thought of him starving the way I used to in Sunnyside when I was denied a meal made my eyes sting. I didn't want to put him through that.

Kyon obviously wants this baby alive. Otherwise he never would've given it to me. So that meant that W.B. wasn't a total threat to me, then, because she'd be disobeying her master. Who was also her son.

But was she rebellious enough to do that?

I looked down at my stomach, bulging underneath the soft curve of my robe. I couldn't let him die because of me. I'd never be able to live with myself if that happened. I stuck out my jaw at W.B., showing her that no matter what she tried I would be ready for her, and begrudgingly agreed to follow her into this kitchen, where food awaited my baby.

…

Yuki moved through the infirmary, grabbing little things he may think of as useful. Stunning powder was mostly the star of the attention he paid to the clustric herbs gathered in misconfigured piles inside the cabinet. He'd made a heck of a mess in his grief that would be a buzzkill to clean later.

He packed them in small quantities, and carried them out of the room in a small white bag, hoping to pass on the items to the Ninja for hiding in their clothes. Wu had already made it clear to the herbalist that he was coming on the trip with them, whether it was his best interest or not; he'd overheard Cole calling their assembled attack "the Crusade." Yuki liked that name because it symbolized power and honor, and it would become a crusade to storm Kaos's final resting place for many crimes. One that happened to be taking under wing Yuki's medicinal rival: _Danielle. _She treated herself too high and mighty to take on the "self-effacing mother" role she was trying to make everyone around her believe (everyone but Yuki) or to make a respectable impression on the healer who had studied plants since he was _born, _not the mid-teens interest for "spells." Yuki thought Dani had too large a self-impression to make any time spent with her enjoyable. He thought that the way she flaunted her "knowledge" of magical remedies was insulting to Yuki, who had worked SO HARD all his life to achieve even the small amount of information he sustained, and he knew that even what he knew as a _healer—_his _profession, _not like Dani's lifestyle—was not comparable to a sliver of herbal understanding. Yet she only picked up on it when she was a tween and thought that she was the center of all herbal practice. A god. She acted like she knew _everything _when she barely did. Yuki used to watch his own mother and listen as a _two year old _to her tell him how to use certain herbs for certain things.

Yuki _admitted _he didn't know everything. Dani wouldn't be caught dead doing that.

He went down the hall into the kitchen, hoping for someone to at least come and direct him to the crowd. Everyone was somewhere—he didn't know exactly where that would be—in this painfully huge place that was in all likelihood designed by the male robots. He already had looked into the empty courtyard and found nobody there, so they were inside somewhere.

The kitchen was as unfruitful as the outer training facility, making Yuki disappointedly wrinkle his nose at the disappearance of all the people in this _whole _place, just deciding to up and vanish in thin air for no apparent reason. He hated when everyone did that. He supposed he'd check outside the kitchen porch one last time to see if there were any stragglers in the courtyard.

His bag jangled in tune to the steps he too, holding the bag straps over his upturned wrist and leaving the other free to operate the door. The freezer kicked on as he passed. Sensitive ears detecting the sounds of the machine working, he glided past the dining table, home to two folded-up articles of clothing, blank of color. He unheeded them for attention necessitated by the door.

His hand closed on the handle when an out of the ordinary glowing light, vivifying in the corner of his eye, caught his interest. Yuki's sensors were attracted to the shining light.

The source was immeasurably the most curious object one could find radiating luminosity in a way that Yuki had never seen before: One of the miscellaneous apparel pieces on the countertop was starting to gleam rays that were heavenly, a silver color that reminded Yuki of Cole's eyes. He didn't know that clothing was manufactured to light up when approached by a life-form. Yuki was not a robot who typically frowned, but if he were, that facial reform would've been suitable to this encounter. He actually wasn't sure what to make of this unusual predicament, considering for a moment that maybe he was having a trick played on him by a nasty joker. By analyzing the glowing enigma on the wooded tabletop, he determined the silvery shining…thing…was not a threat, but leaning closer bred the healer access to heavy traces of radiation. Not chemical radiation, but some other type.

He was hesitant to move the top folded garment from atop the lower one, the one that was glowing, to the side so that he may get a closer look. Unobscured, the shimmering costume shone a brighter silver. Yuki's eyes had to actually be manually adjusted so he could process the waves of light without ruining his sight sensory system. Reaching for it, Yuki found his fingers sizzling with the touch, but not in a bad sizzle that required your flesh to burn and pain to echo your insides. A recognizable, twisted sizzle that made something spark inside of Yuki—as quickly as that came, he jerked his hand away and jumped back. It didn't hurt, but he didn't like how that rather intimate touch had felt to his body. He backed away slowly. Staying was no option anymore. Yuki took off out of the room without bothering to look back at the folded Seven suit that stopped glowing the minute he left.

…  
_~Yin~_

I'm not going to make it this big show to explain to you how exactly my introduction to the kitchen went and the arguments I had with W.B. about poisoning the food she gave me, since I hate giving long descriptions about the things I say and frankly would rather skip those. All you need to know is that I argued with her for, like, seven minutes before I actually took a bite of the food. For all I know, I coulda been chowing down on arsenic mixed in with the things I fed not only my starved self, but the baby growing inside of me. She left out a platter of sandwiches with grape jelly and peanut butter lathered on the insides and cut into those pristine triangles that made me believe she had OCD, a bowl of sundry fruits, some crackers shaped like dolphins, and a jug of milk. I chewed slowly on a sandwich—testing, mostly, for any weird tastes that would give away her duplicity—while staring her down. The kitchen was white, white appliances, blah blah blah. She stood on the other side of the island, looking at me, watching me, creeping on me. When I finished my sandwich, she pushed the fruit at me. "Eat."

She reminds me of the witch in _Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. _

Even though I don't trust her as far as I could throw her, I pulled out an apple, picked at the skin, then took a bite. I was starving, I had a cramp in my hip, and my stomach was bigger than it was before, but if it meant keeping the baby inside of me alive, it was worth it.

I was scared that if it died, I'd be all alone.

That's not the only reason I'm doing this, FYI. That's just the one that just keeps bugging me the most.

"So," W.B. started at my thoughtful chewing, "I hear Lloyd fancies you."

I almost choked on my skinned apple. _Not this again. _No matter what I do, I can't get rid of Twinks, can I? Although it'd be nice to have his company right about now…I had trouble swallowing the chewed up piece that wouldn't go down. I spoke after the clog was gone. "Who the hell says _fancies _anymore?" My voice was not as strong as I wanted it to be.

W.B. pretended I didn't say anything. She picked up her own orange and started peeling away at the dry skin with her nails. "He'd do anything for you," she continued, drawling on. I stared at her with my jaw slightly open. Where, exactly, is she getting this invalid info? "Do you think that means he'll come save you?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Are you _trying _to piss me off, or are you naturally a blonde?" I snapped. "You know nothing about him, and you know nothing about me and my morals. When you say _anything, _that only implies the few things that Twinkies would do in my sake." _Like hell he'd do anything for me. _She was just trying to get a rise out of me, wasn't she?

I grabbed another sandwich and bit into it. W.B. peeled absentmindedly at her orange. "I hope he does save you," she said quietly, like I wasn't supposed to hear that. I stopped chewing to stare at her. "You don't belong here."

"I don't," I agreed, and threw a grape from the stock of the bowl at her. It bounced off her shoulder and landed somewhere.

W.B. looked very melancholy. She sighed. "I didn't want to bring you here," she calmly expressed, sounding regretful. "I wouldn't have if I had a choice. I didn't want any of this to happen to you."

"Do I _need _your sympathy? No. Do I care what you wanted? No. It still happened." I snapped. "You're saying that because you're evil and are trying to get on my good side so you can mess me up later. I've seen the movies. It ain't gonna work." I bit into the jelly-filled bread and said around my food, "I don't have any reason to believe you."

Danielle chuckled dryly to herself, not looking up. "No," she settled, "you don't. But that's okay. I'm determined to help you in the ways that I can."

"I don't want your help."

"Of course you don't." W.B. started pulling apart the white-skinned orange into small smiles. "But I'm going to help you anyway while evasively avoiding my curse to follow whatever Kaos tells me to do until my sentence is up. I've done things today I never would've done myself, but his orders are what bind me. Whatever he tells me to do, I do."

"So…" I swallowed my food. "He says jump, you jump?"

"I keep jumping until he tells me to stop."

"Nice pity story." I sarcastically waved my crust, peeling it apart as I stuck small pieces in my mouth. "But I find it hard to believe that a son put a curse on his mother, who is a witch, and got away with it. There's got to be a catch."

"Son?" I looked up. Danielle looked confused. "Kaos isn't my son."

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever. He told me all about his Kyon-sobby-story of returning from the dead when you put Lloyd's dead spirit in his old body right before he forced me to sleep with him. You should ask your slobby husband to validate that for you. I think I heard he was in the story somewhere, too."

I meant it in the snide way that took on its toll; Danielle fell dead silent. When I looked back at her, she looked like she really _had _no clue what I was talking about, but became white in the face as some wheels started turning or something. I had a hard time believing that she had no clue the most powerful fucker I knew was her son. That just doesn't happen. Ever.

My hand automatically crept over my stomach. _Bokuyo…_

_…  
~Yang~_

"Follow that bird!" I cried, eyes following the dot high in the sky as I sat in the large vehicle that I recognized from the Dark Island, assembled by Dr. Julien just for us when we were going to the Temple of Light. With Cole at the wheel, Kai and Jay sat behind him, and behind them, I spared a seat with Zane. Dad and Wu sat behind us in the last two seats.

In the sky, a flyer carried Yuki, Maya, and Noel after the bird. I knew why Maya and Noel had to come, since we'd all developed a plan in secret back at the monastery, but I didn't get why Yuki was so important. Sensei was _extremely _adamant about bringing him along without explanation for his crazy aspiration. It didn't make sense, but I didn't question him, either.

Grumbling through agreement, Nya had stayed back at the monastery with Mom, Ming, and Rikku to keep an eye on us from a distance until we disappeared into the portal, which Yuki predicted would cut off our signal. Rikku had seemed weary to stay behind and let his clueless little brother go on a dangerous mission without him, but Sensei said "they had other matters to tend to," whatever that meant.

"Everything okay?" crackled a voice from the speaker on the dash in front of Cole. I saw him smirk.

"Nothing has changed since you asked two minutes ago, Nya," he said back. "We're fine."

"Just checking. Over and out."

Kai snorted, but said nothing.

I was really nervous about saving Seiko. I didn't know what kind of state she was in, nor the battle we were diving head-first into, or what I could expect from the "Pandemonium Bastion" and the dangerous people who lived in it. I didn't know what I was supposed to be looking out for. Were there monsters there? Booby traps?

OMG. _Succubae? _

Please, have anything but that. Please!

Most of all, I was worried about Seiko. By piecing together the information I had, ninety-nine-point-nine percent of my brain was convinced that right now, she was pregnant because of that _mongrel, _and knowing her, that couldn't be going well. She's only fifteen, and there's no way she could ever think about taking care of a _kid. _It wasn't her nature to be loveable and caring. She was more like a sea urchin. You touched her, you got stung. All roads led to getting stung. She just wasn't the type of person who would be a _mom. _

I just hoped I could get there in time. I didn't want her to be scared, or feel alone, or feel like she was going to die there, because I'd never let that happen. Not in a million years. I couldn't explain the urge to keep the other half of myself safe from the world, when it seemed like wherever Seiko went, trouble followed her, but I knew that I needed to make sure that no matter what happened, Seiko would always be safe. _Especially_ when I was around.

I didn't know how much of a lie that was until everything in this whole story broke into fragments that were too small to be put back together. Too small to matter, but big enough to cut me into so many little pieces if I tried to touch her…


	79. Chapter 79

**So this is my last week of summer vacation... :(**

* * *

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE:  
**Risk  
_26 minutes later_

The screaming hurts.

When the ferocious octaves of corrupt pain hit your ears, your ears begin to ring, and your heart begins to take a turn of _ka-thump, ka-thump _to a more satiated _ker-ker-ker-ker-ker-ker-thump _medley that would make Bach turn over in his grave if you were to translate it into musical notes. The pitches of your heart's drum solos would be too immeasurable to even think about finding a matching letter note that could be scratched onto a stanza. Hearing the voice of a human being, woefully wailing out the last of the air in their lungs, brings your body to a standstill. The effect is that it is one of the most excruciating, tragic, poignant things that you have ever heard in your entire life. But it isn't the terrain of the cry that makes you want to weep and wallow in your sorrows; it is the _reason _behind the cry that makes it so loud. It is the story that brought them here that makes their cry so much more tormenting to listen to. Your breath clogs your throat, your hands freeze, and time could never move slower for you, holding out your hands ceremoniously as you bring life into the world. Trying to discourage the sounds of her screams hitting your ears, you sweat bullets, watching a macabre sight happen before you. You reach out your hands when you see the first sign of life. Your palms cradle the bloody crown of a small head, giving its first cry to creation that it exists, to let everything listening know that it's there. That it has a voice, that it wants to be heard, and will do whatever it takes for you to know it's alive, even if their small outburst only reaches the ears of three people who can't make much of a difference in the world.

The process is ugly. This isn't the first time that Dani has seen birth, but she hoped that it would be the last, trying not to grimace at the sights she was seeing. Seiko's screams of pure misery hit her ears. It was a moment that lasted only a couple seconds when Dani was caught wishing she was a robot so she could turn down the audibility of her ears, because the sound was making her feel guilty, immoral, volatile, and dirty at being the one who _caused _her this pain. When you traced down the line of events that brought Seiko to this, it all came down to Dani and the curse that denied her freedom. Because she wouldn't say no to…to Kaos, she had ruined the opportunities of another.

Thankfully, Jace was there to provide Dani with a little bit of support. He generously provided Seiko with…Well, no support that she would take, but with a cold rag that he kept renewing the chill with the small bowl of water at the bedside. Where Dani had brought the quickly-birthing mother (luckily, Seiko didn't have to go through the hours of labor leading up to the birth) was a room just beyond the kitchen they'd been in, where she had a sickbed waiting for her. A couple of already-set herbal teas were ready for when this was over.

Jace pressed the cold rag against Seiko's forehead. Danielle knew he was nothing like the other Bizarro; on the job, he could be a hardass, but when he wasn't trying to pretend like nothing mattered to him, Jace was the sweetest person ever, and his compassion for everyone around him was deeper than the roots of a hundred year old Sycamore tree growing in the forest. He was a sweetheart that was just as sickened by Kaos as Dani was, and that made him mean so much more to her in the end.

The cries of the baby that wasn't fully born yet filled the room. Dani coaxed him out gently, trying to ignore the sounds of Seiko's abnormally labored breathing and the ducked cries that she couldn't seem to contain for the worry about the baby. The look of the bloody bundle rolling in her hands made Dani want to run the other way, as birth always had repelled her. "Just a little more," she promised, helping the tiny body out. Babies were a beautiful thing, but everything about this one's upbringing was wrong, wrong, wrong.

She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed that the young, originally-very-tiny girl was going to survive giving birth to this baby, or her death would haunt Danielle for the rest of her Elathan-forsaken life.

…  
_~Yin~_

"Seiko, do you want to see him?"

My eyes, welded shut, actually just wanted to remain closed and sleep and not ever have to face the baby I had been hellbent on protecting, up until I started having _major _pains that I cannot even think about describing to y'all. When it's in your stomach, it's easier to kind of accept 'cause you can't actually _see _it, but the pain I felt giving birth—do you know how WEIRD it is to say that?!—can't even be expressed in words. It hurts more than, in my opinion, being hit and knocking your head into a concrete-ish wall, and it hurts more than being stabbed with a fork by a schizophrenic. I just couldn't even begin to describe it. Not kidding. I could feel myself throbbing, and though I didn't have to do it _ever again _(I can assure you, no other children will come out of me) the memory was still hot and humid. Could I open my eyes and face the thing that I'd been carrying for forty-five minutes? Could I love it when I can't stand children and every one I see I would like to chuck out a car window? Could I love something that came from someone so cruel, so disgusting, so damned _horrible _that I was forever ruined and scarred by what he'd done? I knew that I'd never look at anything the same way again—I, being the talkative person I am who has something to say about _everything_, couldn't even stand the idea of _speaking, _and that's not 'cause I'm too tired to function right. I just didn't want to talk, 'cause I felt like my voice had been taken from me. I felt like I _had _no opinion with the way that Kyon had just thrown me down and taken from me whatever he wanted, and no matter what I had said, it had all bounced off of him harmlessly. He took from me something important, and with that small gift he took a part of me, too. To be utilized as a human toy, to be put on drugs, to be penetrated by his thing _against my will, _and to be treated as less than a human being took away from you a part of your dignity that you'd never get back. He'd stolen from me my morals, my spark, and most of all, he'd treated me in the way that I had always been afraid of being treated. As a little girl, I'd rather go through that hell again than _ever _be destroyed by him. He thought that he could just step in, give me a baby I didn't want, scar me, and go on with his plan to rule the world. I wanted to fight back with my fists, claws, teeth, and every pointy object known to man to stab into his face and gouge his eyeballs with, but there was an equidistant part of me that was too scared, too horrified, and too mutilated to want to fight back. I was scared he'd hurt me, which had never bothered me before when I showed someone off, but Kyon was on a different level than all the other people I'd ever beat up. I was afraid he'd do it to me again, if he had the chance. I was terrified.

"Seiko?"

If I could fall asleep, I could make it all go away. In dreams, I can make the issues in my life disappear just as quickly as they came, specially practiced when I was a little girl. When things got bad, I'd crawl into my bed and fall asleep thinking about a world where it _didn't _hurt to exist, and I'd have beautiful dreams about people who loved me and cared about me and would always accept me, no matter my mental state. Every dream felt real. It would be so beautiful that waking up would feel like I was actually coming into a nightmare—a nightmare that was more real than I wanted it to ever be. Falling asleep thinking about things that made me happy was easier than keeping my eyes open and facing the truth.

I didn't want to see the baby. I closed my heavy eyelids and rolled onto my side, pretending that Danielle was not present in the room with that…that _thing. _I thought hard about something that would take me away from this. That would make up for how awful I felt. What made me happy enough to cover up this mess, at least for a long nap?

"Seiko, look at him. He looks a lot like you."

_What kind of world do you want to live in? _I thought, and the images came quickly to me, my mind familiar with the fantasy. I wanted to live in a place where my mom and my dad were there for me, always hugging me and kissing me when I came home from school, or just 'cause I was standin' in the room, which made it a better place to come home. I'd walk in, and Mom would be in the kitchen, stirring something on the stove (she _loved _cooking; that's where Cole got the fetish from, and her obsession cost my dad a lot of money to upkeep, but he gladly did so anyway) and she'd look over at me, smiling with that beautiful smile, and open her arms for me to run into. "How was your day?" she'd whisper in my ear, and I'd tell her everything, the good, the bad, and the hilarious. She'd listen to me, and she'd laugh along with me. Then, after a while, Dad would come in from spending an hour playing his music, and he'd see me and smile in a way I hadn't seen him smile at me since I was seven, and give me a _giant _hug. I hadn't had a hug from my Dad in such a long time that it seemed like I was hopeless. He'd give Mom a kiss, and they'd talk as I did my homework on the round, fit-four kitchen table, listening to them speak in love and know that their love also touched me, too. Mom would make dinner, and soon, Cole would walk in the front door, and he'd smile at me and drop his backpack on the chair beside mine, slinking into a seat across from me. He wouldn't be a bloodsucking vampire. He'd actually _talk _to me like I was real, like he cared about me. We'd all sit down at the table for dinner and talk about _normal _family things, about stuff that was extremely natural, and it would feel so welcoming to be a part of that communal atmosphere. Cole and I would retreat into the living room beside our parents after we all cleaned up the kitchen to watch some comedy show while finishing up homework, and we'd joke around, have fun like normal families did. When I got tired, I'd retreat to bed, but not until after my mother and father hugged me good night, kissed me on the head, and told me, "I love you," in my ear. I'd go to bed, and I wouldn't be asleep when Cole came in a little later, slink into bed, and tell me outright that he _knew _I wasn't asleep. I'd laugh, and we'd talk about stupid things, and before we both died down into dreaming I'd tell him through the dark, "Love you, Twinkletoes," and he'd chuckle and tell me back, "Love you too, Wappachoo." (Old nickname of mine that I got from him as a teensy tiny baby. Eventually, Momma and Dad started calling me that too…Don't ask.) And I'd fall asleep, excited for the next day, because in it came love, and love was all I ever wanted. It's been so _long _since someone's actually told me they loved me that I can't remember when the last time was.

…

I don't know how long I fell asleep for. Minutes? Hours? I had no way of internally knowing the time, but in this place that was stuck between dimensions, I don't really think there's a _time _thing going on here. My eyelids came open slowly, afraid of the sheen of white-walled, white chaste the poor decorator of this place was ordered into making it. I was in the same room that I was stuck in when my ugly reality of birthing was happening, on that same sickbed—when I wasn't even sick—that I'd fallen asleep on, and heard the silence of the room to be calming over the chit-chat of Witch Bitch and her _au morale _issue of stupidom. I looked into the area of nothing and found no one. I was alone.

Where was the baby?

Just curious, I suppose, to see him.

Had they _stolen _him? Had they _taken him _away to do something awful with him? My heart sparked with a feeling of dread that maybe that is exactly what happened while I was asleep, my baby kidnapped and my room empty of the same people who took him as helped me have him. I sat up straight. Where did they take him? What had they _done _with him?

"You're awake."

I turned my head to the side. A chair in the corner of the room, a chair filled with someone I knew just fine, looked back at me with smoky eyes that for a second gave me a start until I actually looked at him. _Holy moley, _I thought, parting my lips without wanting to say words. Where had he come from?

"I'm so glad you're okay." My father stood, and he carried something wrapped in purple in his arms, but it was no belated birthday gift. It was the baby. He walked towards me. Yet again I am faced with the man who hates me—I heard him say that he liked Cole better than me, not that I didn't know it before—but still keeps coming into my life from random angles. His eyes were just above two dark crescent moons, painted by lack of sleep, and comb-over ruined by mess and no hair gel. He took baby steps towards the redemption of our relationship, holding in his arms the thing that I find extremely scary to see: the baby. _My _baby.

I was cynical that this was actually Kaos playing another cruel joke on me to weaken up the self-esteem he'd stolen from me already, fattening me up just for the occasion so he could eat me later. Maybe, in his stomach, I'd meet the real Hansel and Gretel sitting in there, looking more like crumpled Hobbits rather than the little girl and boy they actually were. You never really knew. I had no reason to trust that the man walking towards me really was my father—why would he even bother to come visit me, and where would he even have come from?—ready to be a randomly supportive dad over nothing but his assaulted daughter that he couldn't give two shits about. If this really was my dad, he wouldn't have cared if I was okay.

I curled my lip at him. "Back off, Kaos," I snapped, finding my voice was hoarse and had no menacing lilt to it that I would've liked to contain.

Lou stopped at my bedside, looking down at me. His eyes were red around the rims, as though he'd been crying, but that had to be a fake feat, too. His rumpled clothes looked like they hadn't been changed lately, his hair appeared to be destroyed in a way Lou never would've let it get to for fear of dropping his social status, and his mustache was unkempt. Lou's eyes said they were sorrowful, apologetic, and pitiful, but I knew that had to be Kaos's trick. "No, Seiko, it really is me," he said. "I was kidnapped, along with Jay's parents, and shoved in a room behind this one." He nodded to the wall across from my bed. "We've been stuck in there, and they had Misako, too, until that—that _monster _came in and took her. We haven't seen her since." Lou's eyes flared with fear and sadness. I just stared at him. "Then, a woman and a boy who looked just like Jay came in and told me you were here. They let me out and told me the whole story, gave me the baby and told me to wait for you to wake up while they distracted that man. Kaos. Just for a little longer until you woke up." Lou, holding the baby in one arm, reached out to touch my hand folded on my lap, but I jerked it away immediately. Hurt showed on his face.

"I know this is a lie," I growled. "It's not funny, Kaos. Quit it."

The hurt spread. "Seiko, it really is me."

"Lou wouldn't care if I got hurt or not," I snapped. I didn't want to call him 'my dad' after the dream I'd just had, knowing that in reality, that wasn't the case at all. Tears stung to choke that out. "He would only be concerned if Cole was here, getting hurt, but unfortunately it's just me, so that really wouldn't affect him. So you can quit playing, Kaos. No one's laughing but you."

Lou bowed his head, ashamed of everything I'd just said, but I knew that it had to be Kaos putting up an act. The truth of my own words hurt to hear in my ears enough to make them activate some sort of switch in my head that thought I needed water works, but I kept them at bay, forcing the warmth and salt to stay in my tear ducts. I wouldn't spread any of them for Kaos to know that he was winning.

"I know in the past I've been so mean to you," Lou said quietly. I crossed my arms. "I know I've been a _terrible, _terrible father, and the way that I have treated you has been wrong. It was never okay for me to ever hurt you, emotionally or physically, because I'm your father, and fathers don't do that." He sighed, closing his eyes and holding the baby closer to him. "It was never right, and I knew it wasn't right. I was afraid of you. I was hurt by the death of your mother, and I was hurt by your brother becoming a vampire, and I was hurt by having to raise you two by myself, which I really didn't even do. I was hurt and I lashed out, and I ended up lashing out at you." Pause. "It was the worst thing I've ever done in my entire life, treating my little girl like that. You probably will never forgive me for it, and I don't blame you for never wanting to see me again, or to let me be a part of your son's life. I understand that." Lou looked up, and his eyes were broken because they were leaking tears. "But I want you to know that even if I did those things to you, and even if I acted like I never loved you, I did. I was just scared—"

"What, scared that I'd be obsessed with you?" I found myself lashing out. _This is Kaos, _I thought. _Don't fall in his trap. _But my words kept tumbling out without my consensus. "You were a total jackass to me for no reason. I was just as hurt as you by all the things that happened, but you only cared about yourself, and in the end was just too tired of dealing with me so you chucked me into the nut house 'cause you had reasonable cause. You _didn't _love me. People who love other people don't treat them like that."

Lou's face was _really _leaking. I don't think I have seen him cry since my mom died, but now, he's completely turning on the blubbering switch. _Don't forget this is KAOS, _I reminded myself, and snapped out of it. _You're falling into his trap. _

"Seiko, baby, I love you so much," he sobbed. "And when they told me what he did to you—"

"Just shut up. Nothing you can say is going to fix this, and it's not going to make me believe you're actually Lou."

I was snapped from the concentration of argument by a voice from the doorway, a familiar face stepping in and leaning against the wall. "How amusing," said Kyon, and I froze. Lou turned around to face him. "I've got her so well trained that she believes that _I'm _doing all this. I must say, I'm proud of myself." He chuckled, examining his nails. "I didn't think it would be that easy."

Lou's face turned into a grimace of hatred. "_You," _he snarled. "You're him, aren't you? You did this to her."

Kyon tipped his head. "Why of _course. _I take full credit."

"How _dare _you do that to just a young _girl—"_

"As you can see," Kyon gestured towards me, the movement stirring air and hitting me in the face with it, my lungs catching with that horrid oxygen. I felt my heart drop. _If Kyon was never here, _I thought, my blood rising, _then that means…it really _is _Lou? _Or was Kaos still controlling my mind to make me THINK I saw Lou? "She isn't really a 'young girl' anymore. You see, my witch made a little mistake with her aging potion, and it didn't really stop aging at nine months. She made a counteractive potion for the baby—which actually, if not fed that, would still be aging—so he wouldn't get older in a matter of four seconds, as he was supposed to, but will age normally now instead." Kyon pursed his lips. "But she didn't make one for your poor daughter! How sad! Since the aging potion continues to make her age, she isn't really that fifteen year old girl you once knew and abused, poor old man." He chuckled. Lou bristled. "She actually, by my calculations, has aged two years while she was dreaming in la-la-land." Kyon shrugged a shoulder at me. "So now she looks to be eighteen. Funny, isn't it? The way time flies?" His laughter only set my father off, and Lou trembled. He turned around, gently discarded the baby onto my stretched out body, resting the head on my chest and the rest of him sprawling down my abdomen. He returned to staring hard at Kyon.

"You _bastard," _he howled.

"Actually, my parents were married when they—"

"GRAAHHHHH!" I didn't see the way Lou hurled himself at Kyon coming, but I knew it was trouble the second he bowled over the startled Shadow Dancer, 'cause my father was human and he was a monster with power that was hard to be contained. They struggled on the floor as I grabbed onto the baby to put him in a more comfortable position, head on elbow and body cradled like I saw people do in movies to support his head or…something. I don't really pay attention to stuff about kids because I never wanted any, but I guess now I have no choice. I looked upon the child in my arms and the small, evenly stretched skin, the baby blue eyes, the tiny lips and the teensy nose. His skin was still rosy red. He had a round face, and big, chubby cheeks, but not in the fat way, the baby way. Over the top of his head, unlike the golden bristles I expected, was a swath of black hair. I wrinkled my nose. _But Bokuyo had blonde hair, _I thought, confused. Why would he suddenly not have blonde hair anymore? Maybe it was one of those things that changed, like the way their eyes changed color as they got older. That was probably it. I didn't see what W.B. had meant when she said he looks a lot like me—I don't see him looking like either of us. Me or Kyon, I mean. He just looks…like a chubby little baby who is staring at me with big eyes and looks happy. For as long as I had known Bokuyo, he was always enthusiastic (not like me) and happy (not like me) and wanted to be around me (definitely not like me) for every waking moment he spent in the same room as me. He told me he loved me, too. But that didn't really affect me much because I didn't know him well. It was just a thing. The baby in my arms looked to be happy, just because he was looking at me, which is a little weird. Since when has ANYONE looked at me and been happy?

I reached out a finger to touch his cheek. Softer than anything I'd ever touched.

Out of the girth he was wrapped in, his little hand came up out of the purple cloth, and it curled around my finger immediately. I froze. His whole had was about as wide as two fingers wrapped around my finger—so small. His digits were, like, as long as my toes but definitely thinner, and his arm had the chub-chub going on. I stared. He stared back.

"Bokuyo?" I whispered. His nose twitched.

I poked his lips with my finger. He immediately opened them and started sucking on the tip of it, but I pulled it out, not wanting to even think about the instinct of sucking he had.

So this was…my, erm, um, you know.

I shivered. In my head, I heard the cry of the Bokuyo I'd known, his happy call to me from wherever he was : _"Mommy! Mommy! Hai Mommy!" _Was Bokuyo still here, in this time, or was he somewhere else? I looked at the baby again.

Then I looked at the fighting. Lou was punching Kyon in the face, and Kyon was trying to attack back. Words were grumbled but I wasn't really listening. I stared at both of them, and felt a lot like the anti-Cole and Zane when they were playing checkers, refusing to end their game as I beat up W.B. and ant-Jay. Staring at their fighting didn't affect me at all.

Because I didn't care.

* * *

**On behalf of StoriesAreMagic, Go have an AWESOME day/night! xD**


	80. Chapter 80

**Fun Fact: "Kaos" is named after a jerk I have gone to school with.**

* * *

**CHAPTER EIGHTY:  
**The Arrival  
~_Yang_

"This is Jamanakai Village," said Kai, leaping off of the wheel of the vehicle to come stand at the side of Jay, the thankful divider between Kai and me, so he could gesture at the village that sat in my memory vaguely as one of those places I threatened and bamboozled with my demands for candy that I only got by force with the Hypnobrai. We all lined up outside of the small brown townhomes with something pretty close to confusion on our faces, extroverted through our open mouths that couldn't form the words that would speak of our natural oblivious attempts to figure this out. The Falcon insisted already three times with a squawk and a dive into the sky of the village that this is what he wanted to show us, but I don't think any of us could get past how really this wasn't quite fitting with the other puzzle pieces in our heads. It was one thing to come here and be faced with my own past demons that didn't haunt me so much anymore as they used to after I became the destined Green Ninja, guilt the one who kept uncovering the dirt that I put on all my embarrassing memories of ransacking this particular town in search of sugar, which I don't even eat anymore. Either I screwed it up for myself with the numerous sugar highs, or the past plagued me so badly that I banned myself from ever consuming sugar again. I just had an intestinal intolerance for process foods loaded with sugar and other bad things for your body. Looking at Jamanakai village really didn't make it any better for me to look at in a brown-plaster reminder that I used to be a devilish little kid—neither did being around Jay, for that matter, with the jokes I knew he'd nervously begin cracking after he got over his momentary stunned silence, and until then the lack of talk would be music to my unsound ears.

Why Kaos would put his secret headquarters's portal in a town that was undeserving of the negative attention was probably for that very reason: it was the lesser of the obvious places to put a portal in, if you were going to make it so that ninja couldn't follow you into the place that you kept all your darkest secrets. But how would he fit a portal in here and make it so that no one ever saw you come and go? The people here weren't idiots—they'd proved that to me pretty well, actually—and would know that some sort of evil was brewing 24/7 if strange looking things kept moving back and forth out of wherever the portal might've been, unless Kaos used his powers to control them and make them not see a thing. Dammit. His powers were a solution to _every _problem, weren't they? If you didn't want your mother to see you stealing from the cookie jar, just make it so she thinks she doesn't see you and you could take all the cookies you wanted.

"Why would he pick _this _place?" Jay asked, walking forward towards the entrance of the place. We all could feel how many memories flowed through the fountain in the center of Jamanakai, steaming their way into our senses in the same way that the anti-venom from the Hypnobrai staff flowed over the water, fog-like, to heal all the controlled people of the mind-control they'd been deep underneath.

"Let's hope it's just because he has a sweet tooth, too," said Cole, throwing a sideways glance at me. Scratch my admonition that it was our lovely joke-cracker Jay; Cole was the real dirty mouth here, and that same mouth quirked upwards when he caught me glaring, frowning, and shaking my head at him. Not cool, man. The humor disappeared from his leader quicker than it came. Leaving our vehicles on the outside brink of the village, he commenced the crusade into the archway leading for the viscera of the place, the heart being the fountain itself and the veins the water roadways. After taking a deep breath, we all followed him in, Jay closer to his heels with Zane looking around in honest care that he was amazed by the sight of a flipping town. Uncle placed a hand on my back to urge me to go on after Kai, my hesitation noticed by everyone but the red ninja stepping ahead of me, earning me a gentle clunk on the head from the sensei that seemed to think smacking someone's head made them smarter than it would to make them dumber. Reverse psychology must actually exist with him. I rubbed my noggin, following Kai in, but at a safe distance; I didn't know why I was taking this whole "crush on my best friend" thing so hard, hating the feel of the way it made me sick and confused in one lovely little batch of My Life Sucks cookies.

We walked in, suspecting something big but actually finding the whole scene pretty laid back, as far as normal days in Jamanakai Village go when it's always being intruded by some sort of something that has its mind set on taking over Ninjago. There were still farmer's markets going on, people sweeping off their doorsteps, chatting lazily on the sidewalk and kids running around playing tag. It made me realize something. These people, even if they did see something, wouldn't be able to call us, because according to all of Ninjago, we Ninjas are pure evil now with Kai's sentence of killing Brad Tudabone in cold blood mixing in the same pot as Jay, Cole, and Zane shooting my dad in the parking lot of the Museum of History. So basically, if they've got company, they won't do anything. Police couldn't even solve the issues that happen to come with Ninjago and all of our scarily-real folklore.

"It's been a while since I last stepped into this place," Jay shared. I could feel something aimed at me coming my way already. They'd _never_ let me live this down. "It almost brings back some pretty _small _memories. They taste like cotton candy."

I groaned. "Can we _please_ not forget the task at hand?" I begged, trying to evade any other jokes that might come this way while I worried sick about my friend, stuck in a room with a psychotic shape shifting mind controller, literally chatting it up with danger while we were all standing out here making jokes about the idiot kid I used to be. I pushed past all of them to emerge into the centre of Jamanakai Village, the fountain directly from my position and running water dripping out its sources. The Falcon overhead took a dive towards a place behind a building.

Behind me, I heard Zane speaking. "How can you taste a memory?" he asked. "Your thoughts aren't connected to your taste buds, are they?"

"Well, not exactly." Jay.

"If I remember breakfast this morning, will I taste waffles?"

"Probably not."

"Then you are a liar. You cannot taste cotton candy in your memory. Thank you for killing my hopes and dreams."

"Sorry. Wait until I invent _Smellevision! _Aw, man, wait till you get a load of that! It'll be my greatest invention yet…"

I ran after the Falcon, leaving behind their uncaring words for the savior of Seiko, looking for a way around the back of the building the bird had screamed down to and avoiding the cries of my name—not in fear—coming from everyone behind me while some grumbled about impulsivity. The people around didn't seem to care that I was in their town. None of them even looked at me. Weird.

Pulling up my hood, I jumped up on a stack of crates on the side of the house, grabbing onto the rim of the brown-shingled roof, using the many hours I spent mastering pull-ups with my upper body strength hauling me onto the gable. I abutted the peaks of the high-climaxed house designs while I ran over several houses to make it for the secret place that the Falcon was sure Kaos kept his portal in, working out the dynamics of why, exactly, he chose _this _place to hide it in. I jumped over the rooftops, and heard the voice of Cole on some of them behind me telling me to slow down (which I won't do. Not my fault they wasted time talking) so we could "do this as a team," but the Falcon was still flying.

I dismounted into the empty backyard that the bird decided he was sure the portal was in, but I found it empty enough, watching it land on the wooden fence of the cradle that kept this yard boxed in. He looked like he was done flying, tilting his head at me, and our stare down continued until we were joined by the other four Ninja in flying alights to the pebble. Cole pulled back his hood and put a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, before you go running off again, you gotta remember we're in this together."

"Gee, that one sounds familiar," Kai said sarcastically. I didn't recognize it, but it must've been a recycled phrase they discussed with him before at his impulsive reactions.

I shrugged him off. "Where's the portal?" I asked the bird. Zane limped forward to pet it.

"Somewhere near," Zane said. "I sense it."

A hand came over the side of the fence, and I watched as Maya hauled herself up, swinging both legs to the side we were on before she jumped down and landed neatly on her feet. Noel jumped down after, along with Uncle, Dad, and Yuki, until we were all gathered in some random dude's backyard by the suggestion of a mechanical bird. I looked for some indication of the viewpoint that would take us into the Pandemonium Bastion, something in the backyard, but the place was totally empty. Worthless. I threw up my hands. "Sense harder!" Driven by anxiety, I clawed at my head. "Where is it?"

"Calm," Sensei reminded me.

I wanted to bash my skull in. Waving my arms around, trying to find the place where the portal could be, I touched the walls of the fence, thinking there was a "secret switch" to activate the real powers of the portal. There was a high chance that the bird was wrong about this even _being _the portal site.

Everyone did the same as me, but it was just a failure. "There's nothing here!" Jay voiced my thoughts.

Then, in a rhythmic spur of the moment, the Falcon jumped off the fence and flew straight at me. I gave a cry. He was probably mad at me for not understanding that there wasn't anything here, knowing my face was about to get bashed in by a flying hunk of metal—when all of the sudden, the Falcon disappeared from plain sight, right in midair. I stared hard at the air. Where had he gone?

"The portal," I whispered. I reached out my hand to the place where he'd gone in. It sunk right through and disappeared, too. I yanked it back out, my arm actually still in one piece—the portal was in the air. I looked back at the other Ninja. "See you on the other side," I said, and jumped in.

…

Jace opened the door to where Seiko was kept from the world, a warm bottle of milk in his hand for the new baby. Danielle had just given him this after shoving him out of her workshop for a couple of minutes, then passed it along to him, telling him that he needed to take it to Seiko before time wet itself and was gone. She was hard at work making a counteractant potion to stop Seiko from aging so much—when Danielle had realized her body wasn't going to stop aging, she quickly had gone to arrange one for the new baby, but hadn't quite had the time to finish one for Seiko before cramming it down the child's throat to ensure he got no older. The last Jace had checked on her, the girl no longer looked like a fifteen year old, but more like a girl that just had her eighteenth birthday and was glad to get out of the house. He didn't know how different she'd be when he walked inside the room again to give her the bottle for the baby.

There was a brawl going on on the floor that Jace tuned out. Seiko looked at him from across the room, child in arms, with suspicion going on inside of her head when she was starting to be skeptic of Jace's position in this whole thing, but he was actually not that bad of a person when he wasn't intentionally trying to be mean. He cared about what happened to others. Especially ones that didn't deserve the hurt. He moved across the room and waved the bottle at her. "Special delivery," he said, a little upturned by the way she'd changed. Her hair was long, reaching her waist now in a sweep she'd put it over her shoulder, and the round face she used to have was now thinned out and elegant, her cheekbones higher and her eyes wider, sharper, taking in things more. The once mutated-by-destiny body had taken away all the scary, unnatural traits of her skin and face and returned them back to normal by turning her eyes back to gray, making her lips a peachy pink, and leaving the skin rosy and real and creamy. Her eyelashes were long and black by nature. Her hands touching the baby had longer, less wrinkled and more sophisticated fingers. Her chest had…filled out. She looked like a girl that Jace would've dated if he wasn't already in love with Danielle.

"What's that?" Seiko asked, edgy. Jace looked at it.

"Milk. Not formula, since we don't have that." He passed it on. "Give him some. He's probably pretty hungry."

Seiko awkwardly held the lipid bottle of breast milk in her hands, trying to figure out just what angle she was supposed to plug it into the baby's already-opening-and-closing mouth to shut up the cries that would start coming if she didn't stick it in soon. Jace raised an eyebrow. Since when did a mother know how to put a bottle into her baby's mouth? Actually…scratch that. Seiko was about as much of a mother as Kaos was.

"Like _this," _he said, and took it from her, gently weaseling the nipple into the child's mouth, watching him start to suckle immediately after it slid in. He held onto the octagonal plastic carriage of the bottle until Seiko slowly took it from him, trying to keep it in the same position that Jace had settled it into. She looked, to him, like she was a little bit afraid of doing this. Jace already had gathered that she was no girl to want children from anyone or any, in Kaos's case, _thing, _which explained the fact that she kept chewing on her cheek. Most likely, Seiko wasn't the cookie-cutter propaganda of motherly affections towards children that were born in less than one hour of being conceived.

He looked back at the tussle between Kaos and what Jace presumed to be the father of Seiko, both rolling on the ground in a battle for dominance, preserved in a position of overlapping the other male. They looked pretty distracted to him. He turned back to Seiko, leaning close to ear so that his lips brushed the cartilage. "Let's get out of here," he whispered. "We need to get you out of this forsaken place."

Seiko gave him a sideways, suspicious glance. That was expected; he was a man on the bad guy's team who was trying to help a prisoner become a tyrant, part of the plot to help her escape. But the things that Kaos had done to her were enough. Whatever power she had that was so important to him was not as important as the preservation of the human body and all the childish qualities that would fade away through time, not by forcible potions that made age seem petty by taking down two years in a matter of seconds. On the outside, Jace might look like the villain's crook, but on the inside, he was a big softie with compassion. Blame that on Jay.

"What reason do I have to trust _you?" _she asked. Jace knew that one was coming.

"You don't," he said, "but if you stay here, you're going to become Kaos's little bitch, and believe me when I say that's _not _fun." He looked back. The singing dancer just took a chair and slammed it down on Kaos's body, making the demon cry out. Okay. Their chance was now or never. He grabbed onto her hand. "Please. I'll take you to the exit, and when you jump through the portal, you'll be _out _of here."

"Why do you care what happens to me?"

Jace sighed. Were these questions the basic outline of her personality? He looked back quickly over his shoulder; the fight had gotten more intense. He was surprised the baby wasn't reacting to all the noise. "I'm not the bad man here," he whispered. "Kaos is. I might be Compelled to do whatever he says, but that doesn't stop the way I think and what I believe. As much as I hate to say it, I'm just like Jay, and he'd _never _let you get ruined like this." Jace bit his lip. "Let me help you. Then, when you can get out of here, you can go to safety and stop trusting as many people you want. But for right now, I need you"—he took a deep breath—"to trust me."

Seiko stared at him, hard. With the boy nestled in her arms, bottle shutting up his cries, she looked narrower than someone who had slit eyes for eternal life, more suspicious of his intentions with the more punches that the two brawlers threw. Jace's breath was held. _Trust_, he thought_, is not something earned overnight. But hopefully, she can ignore the idiot who thought that was a great life lesson, toss that out the window, and follow me out of here before Thing 1 and Thing 2 start paying attention…_

_…_

"Which way do we go?" Seiko asked, pacedly walking quickly down the hall at his side with the baby in her arms quiet enough. It wasn't like he knew how to talk around that huge sucker in his mouth, anyway. Keeping an eye out, Jace put his hand on her back and moved her quicker along down the white hallway, a detour they'd taken out a door to the side of Seiko's bed rather than the one closest to Kaos and his "friend," as not to disturb the affray. If either of them saw Seiko getting away, their short period of a head start would be eliminated, and both of them would be in for who-knows-what. The detour out the side door led them into a spider web of other hallways. Pandemonium Bastion, a fortress determined to dissuade the outside to press inside, was a huge building that was only made up of a maze. Yes, that's true. A maze. There were actually only eight rooms in this gigantic place (not including the heart of the bastion) and the rest was just a bunch of winding hallways that would deter those who were not familiar with the layout (pretty much anyone but the Bizarro, Danielle, and Kaos; pointedly, the Ninja, if they ever found this place, which they never would.) It was Pan's Labyrinth in here. All these hallways were just meant to confuse foreigners and get them lost before some of the…"special surprises" found them and ate them alive. Jace knew exactly which of the many, many, many hallways had what he called "Nightmares" waiting to attack an intruder. They were creatures of mass heritage from the Underworld that took the shape of your worst fear and used that against you, smuggled in somehow many years ago and left to roam freely since. Kaos had managed to capture a well number of them and entomb them inside of the Bastion, putting them in different halls to eat visitors.

Luckily for the both of them, Jace had studied the blueprints of this place so well that he was able to evade the booby trapped halls and such monsters and keep himself in one piece while strolling off to the bathroom, while everyone else suffered. He didn't know how many times he'd seen Kayus, Ash, and Fang come grumbling towards him, muttering incoherently about getting eaten AGAIN and having to respawn. Respawning was a painful process to tolerate, and with as many times as his friends had to do it all because they'd been eaten by a demon—it was hilarious to watch others' pain. All Jace ever did was laugh at them. He guessed being the nerdy one of the bunch paid off, didn't it?

"This way," he said, taking a left down the hall. He had to get to the heart, then take the main entrance _out _in order to avoid any of the other hallways to get there. Once in the heart, they'd get to the main entrance, the biggest hallway, that had a whole bunch of rooms breeding off it, (and place to Danielle's workshop) to be able to reach the exit portal at the end. The trick to reaching the main entrance off the Heart of Pandemonium Bastion, though, was that there was a fake wall planted there so that aliens to the place would think it was a dead end and be influenced to take another booby-trapped hallway. He tried to keep Seiko moving at a quicker pace. The baby chewed on its drink.

"Remind me, again, why you're helping?"

"Why not?" Jace asked, peering down another hall to ensure a clear coast. "Turn here."

"You're a bad guy."

"Not all bad guys are truly bad," he said, staring straight ahead. It was true. "What Kaos did to you was wrong, and if I'd known what he was going to do with you, I wouldn't have let this happen, no matter if he'd given me orders to stay out of the way or not. You're just a kid."

"Doesn't seem like it so much anymore," she grumbled, and threw a glance at her growing body.

"Yeah, well, I'll fix that," he said. "Dani's already cooking up your antidote now."

…

_Slam. _Cole landed hard against a solid ground, skidding over the polished surface until his body ran out of momentum under the traction of friction, and let him press his cheek dazedly to the cold linoleum floor for a second to regain his ear fluids back to equality. Jumping through the portal felt like being sucked into a vacuum cleaner, thrown around in a hurricane, and spat out like bad food into their destination. He closed his eyes for a second and let the cool floor soothe him.

Damn you, Lloyd. He'd pulled several Kai moves on this mission by moving ahead without everyone. The worst of them all was jumping into the portal without knowing where he'd end up. He hadn't waited for the team, and he hadn't taken the time to let everyone gather their thoughts and review the mission before he went diving into the unknown on the other side. As nice as it was to have a best friend for the kid, Kai's bad habits were rubbing off on him.

"Is he dead? He looks dead."

Noel's voice drifted into Cole's ears. He squeezed shut his eyes for a second before replying, voice distant, "I'm not dead."

"Yep, he's dead."

Cole opened his eyes to find Noel on his feet beside Yuki, Sensei, and Maya. Everyone else was trying to reach the soles of their shoes without falling heavily on their asses, failing that simple task. The fact that none of the four were human explained why they weren't as negatively affected by the travel through dimensions, their bodies not finding anything to complain about because Maya technically was already dead and didn't have nerve feeling, Yuki and Sensei were robots, and Noel was…whatever. It didn't explain why Cole had been so altered by the travel. He wasn't human, either. _But you've lived among the humans longer, pretended to be one for more time than they have. You're adapted to human reaction, while they are not, _a voice in his head told him. He sat up, thankful for the hand that Yuki stuck out to help him to his feet, and looked around.

A long white hallway stretched before him, different hallways stretching off as far as he could see, to finish in a wall at the very end of the white corridor. Cole frowned. "Looks like this guy's a neat freak," he said, looking at the lack of decoration and pristine, polished white everything.

Coming to his side, Jay rubbed the back of his head, sore. "Yeah, but where's the green?" He asked.

Cole frowned. "What?"

It was Kai who answered, running to Cole's side to stare out at the place. His face was ridden with panic. "Where's Lloyd?" He asked, and Cole heard his friend's heartbeat speed up. Cole turned and reviewed the number of people standing around him, scanning securely with his eyes, locking onto every face before counting them off in his head. _Damon...Sensei…Maya….Yuki….Noel…Zane…Kai…Jay…The Falcon? _

Lloyd was gone.

"Dammit." He drew his gloved hand down his face, taking a patient breath. Hysteria never answered the question. "You know, Kai," he said, walking forward, between, and past Kai and Jay, trying to channel as much patience as musterable from the well of holiness inside of him. "It's great and all that you're his friend, but you stink as an influence on him."

…

Dani held in her hands the small container no bigger than the palm of her hand, the antidote preciously cradled from outside influences that could knock it over and shatter all her hard work, natural and manmade. She covered it with both hands as she ran for the exit of her workshop. So much effort had gone into her second antidote for the aging-potion-gone-wrong that if she so much as spilled a gram of it, the whole thing would be worthless. She pried open the door to her workshop, heart pounding.

And was met with a pair of startled, sandy eyes that quickly darkened into hatred.

"I _knew _we couldn't trust you," growled Yuki Akamatsu.

Dani stared at him. _How did you get here? How did you FIND this place? _She thought, wanting to ask, but knew with the way he looked at her that it was not a wise decision. She took a step back and shielded the cure from him. "Yuki, don't jump to any—"

"DANIELLE?!"

The chorus of different voices made her look past Yuki's form into the corridor, where a throng of familiar faces stared in shock. Four Ninja, a King of the Underworld, one Original Vampire, and two brothers of light and darkness stared at her, trying to understand what they were seeing. Danielle's human face flushed out of its natural color, leaving her blank and unridden in embarrassment, knowing that they wouldn't listen to anything she had to say about being Compelled under all the work she was doing, even if at the moment she'd made a corrective for one of her biggest mistakes. She swallowed. "Oh, Jesus," she whispered.

"Pray all you want," said Noel, raising a dark eyebrow in company of a cocky smirk. "Because you're about to get destroyed by some pret-ty angry ex-friends of yours. Tell me, how does it feel to be a traitor?" Noel tilted his head. _He looks so much like Kai, _she thought absently, swallowing hard. _You can tell they're brothers. _The hair was a dead giveaway, the dark, chocolatey brown that came on a Hershey's bar, and though Noel had greenish-eyes, they were the same shape as Kai's had once been. Not to mention their noses. He was just a younger version of Kai, really.

Oh, well. What was the point in noticing it anyway? She was going to be slaughtered in about five seconds, leaving her with only one option in getting this antidote to Seiko before they destroyed it.

Run.

…  
~_Yang~_

There were so many hallways. No matter which way I turned, no matter how many of them I cleared, it seemed like every hallway I went into had six different _other _hallways leading off them. I can't remember which way I even took to get in here.

As I took down so many more slanted, crooked, and twisting passages, I couldn't get one blasting thought out of my mind, one that above everything pulsed against my skull until I got dizzy enough to have to sit down for a second under its pressure:

_All my fault. All my fault. All my fault. _

I promised Seiko I wouldn't let anything in this supernatural war hurt her, because she didn't belong in this. If I hadn't brought her into this mess with me, she wouldn't have to go through any of this; if I hadn't been the one to go save her from the Temple of Forgotten Warriors, she wouldn't have been transported through some weird teleporty thing that took us to the Underworld along my side. It all came down to the main reason that ANY of this shit had happened, and for everything, that was all my fault, too. If I had just told my friends about the Arachnaeus, then this never would've happened. I never, ever, ever, EVER would've hurt the people that have been hurt, and Seiko certainly never would've become a pawn in this dangerous game of ruler's chess, becoming the play toy of a dictatorial Shadow Dancer that wanted to take everything over. My friends never would've gotten tortured or killed. Things that happened never WOULD'VE happened if I had just told everyone the truth.

This is all my fault.

Everything _I _did started this. And I'd have to be the one to end it.

I ran down the next hallway, detouring and detouring and detouring and detouring. There were no excuses for what I've done, and there are no excuses for letting myself get away with it, denying it for so long. This was my fault.

Hall. Hall. Hall. Turn. Hall. Turn. Hall. Was I going in circles? Everything was just white. No landmarks to tell me if I was going the right way or not. I don't KNOW where I'm GOING. Everything…is so…freaking…fucking…dammit! I stopped and kicked the wall, sliding down it until I collapsed in a fret at the base, frustrated so badly that my chest was tight. I needed to take a minute, to gather myself, to regain control of my feelings. I could feel the Other Guy building up inside of me, trying to bust his way out, shove and push and insult his form into the real world outside. I needed to let him go back to where he came from in the depths of my heart before he took me over and ruined this completely.

…

She lingered around the corner, watching him.

He was lying down. Tired, maybe? Sick? She didn't know, but he looked delicious, and she hadn't eaten in days. She took a peek into his mind, probing for his worst fears so that she could play them better than a fiddle into the air, luring his horror into her stomach so she could eat before he was overwhelmed enough to eat _him, _too. Oh, he looked so _GOOD! _She licked her lips, eager weaving her body into a shift of shape casted by the form of his worst fear and his greatest desire, all combined into one terror-filled feast for her lovely, lovely body. She descended.

She crawled across the ground on her hands and knees, turning her face into a mask of sadness and fear, weak emotions that made her look dainty and small, hair falling into her eyes. Human flesh slapped against the cold, rubbery floor. In startle, the boy looked over, frowning, and let his eyes flash at the sight of her creeping towards him, native to the daintiness of small females that she once was so allured by the look of. To add sumption, her lip bobbed.

"Seiko?" he asked, bolting up with wide eyes, trying to believe what he saw was real. She conjured tears for the effect.

"Help me," she whispered, and collapsed on the ground. He stood up and ran towards her, dropping at his knees to her side, and touching her shoulder.

"Oh, my goodness. I'm so glad I found you," he breathed. "Are you okay?!" He gasped, helping her sit up. She looked around, lightheaded.

"Help me," she whispered again, and fell against his body, pushing them both over on purpose. She didn't know very many human words. Those two were her most commonly used. They easily lured men to her.

He pulled her against him, tucking her head under his chin. "It's okay. I'm here."

She pushed herself over him, keeping him pinned underneath her. She didn't have to use her strength yet since he wasn't fighting back, just looking up at her dumbly, trying to understand why she threw her legs over his hips and pushed her weight on him to keep him still. She tried to think of what to say to him. Her human words were limited. "Hello" wouldn't work. "Cat" didn't seem to fit either. She bit her lip, watching him reach for her to hug her, but she used her hands to wrap around his wrists, pushing them onto the floor. She hovered over him, making sure to tempt him dangerously. "Help me," she said again, trying to figure something less tacky. He took a breath.

"If you get off me, I'll help you," he said, trying to move, but she used her strength. He couldn't. He looked confused. "C'mon, Seiko, lemme go."

"Lem-me go," she repeated. What did that mean?

She bent down and drug her lips against his throat. He shivered. "What's wrong with you?" he asked. She heard his voice shake.

She reached back with her teeth to bite his ear. Then, she kissed the corner of his jaw, trying to get him to react more. His muscles went tense in his stomach underneath her. She kissed his body again.

"Seriously," he said, sounding winded, "what's…what's going on?"

She pulled herself up, hovering her mouth over his. He looked down at her lips. _Words, words, words. _She twitched her nose. What word? "Love," she decided, hoping that was enough, and did what humans called a 'kiss.'

Digging her nails into the skin of his bound wrists, he responded by giving her back a forceable pressure of his lips against hers, vying for more. She drank in his desires first, loving the way that the energy felt curling inside of her, and let him lead, curling his fingers in her hair and drinking in pieces of her that fed _him. _She let him do that thing that all the men she found liked to do: stick that wet muscle in their mouth into hers. She thought it was weird human tradition, but obeyed.

Moments passed, and she consumed his desire, but it wasn't enough. She needed more. Grabbing onto his shirt, she dug her nails into his chest, bringing out lust instead of blood at the wound. The space between his legs got hard underneath his pants.

Good, she thought, and drank in more. But now…she'd had her fill of desire. She wanted something tastier.

Fear.

"You're acting so weird," whispered the boy against her mouth. "You don't normally…" She squeezed his shoulders, diving for kisses to the neck, when his body jerked underneath hers. He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her off him. He stared up in horror. "You're not Seiko."

She giggled and played with the sash around his waist. He was an idiot. "Wanna play?" She whispered, grinning, taking him by the hips and shoving him down when he tried to move with a strength he couldn't match. His eyes got wide. "I say so."

His heart started to thunder, and the fear that she craved started to roll in. It tasted so good. She grinned playfully and pulled her body across him. He struggled to shove her off, but she was lead, unable to be wavered by any amount of strength. "Get off!" He commanded, but his voice was weak. She nibbled his ear. His heart pounded against hers. "No!" He cried. He pushed against her, tried rolling over her so he could run, but she was too strong. She laughed.

"Mine," she said, looking into his eyes. They were wide with fear.

"Oh, God, no," he whispered. A huge wave of fear hit her psychic taste buds, and she smiled happily at being fed so much by him. He paralyzed himself with his own fright. "You're…you're a…"

She toyed with his lip on her own. In reality, she was a Nightmare. But to him, right now, in his brain, she was only one thing.

A succubus.


	81. Chapter 81

**CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE:**  
Cursed

Lloyd screamed. His hands curled around her arms, and, quickly acting, turned his hands into a five-bracket torch that would sink into her fake skin. His whole body pounded against itself, afraid of what was lying above him—his worst nightmare wearing his friend's face, to put it in a sentence that was in no way simple—in proving its reliability when the fire started to scorch the hell out of her arms. Wailing, the succubus reared back, taking herself off him with an angry howl. She looked down at him, and Seiko's gray eyes turned into a wiry casted brown that was leaning towards more orange than tanned cream. Hands still trouped with fire, Lloyd shoved against her chest, making it also begin to wrinkle and turn deep burgundy underneath him, searing the flesh away to make her raw in the middle. The succubus wailed and fell backwards. His body, all but his legs, were free, though tearing away from her was easy when she wasn't trying to purposely increase her weight, something women typically didn't do with intention. He kicked off her and scrambled to the pads of his shoes, rambling down the hall that he'd come from. He heard her yowling behind him.

_I need to get far away, _he thought, gaining speed to distance the space between them. His breathing turned hard, and he forgot all about the maze of hallways that would kill him if he kept running. All he was fixed on was getting away, and making sure that the succubus wasn't hot on his trail. He glanced behind him to make sure there was nothing.

"Are you lost?"

Lloyd screamed and whirled, unknowingly let his mind get the better of him and taking on Spinjitzu, whirling through the middle of the hallway in a golden aura until he accidentally lost track of his motions and slammed into the wall. He dizzily tried to take back a correct image instead of the snake-like waver in the walls. He shook his head, eyes closed, trying to reconnect with the real world—and remembered he'd been spoken to. Lloyd spun around to face the speaker of the voice.

Was it the succubus? No…it was a…Lloyd didn't know how to explain the faun-like creature standing in front of him. She looked to have stepped directly out of one of the fairytales that Misako used to tell him before he went to bed, about Celtic places full of creatures that didn't make sense. Two small, but broad, horns curled out from behind her ears and caved inward, their tips pointed external, two inches just above the crown of her head. Short, choppy, light pink hair only reached the base of her skull, except for two really long pieces coming from both sides of her bangs. Really long, horizontal elvish ears poked out, and a dapple of freckles crossed her cheeks. A pair of bright pinkish eyes matching her whitish pink hair looked up at him innocently, her tiny lips full and minor, and a small nose twitching at the observance of Lloyd in the same questionable way he was doing to her. Her arms were barren. A choker around her neck was attached to a massive diamond of pink color, attached to the strapless purple dress she wore, short to her mid-thighs. The faunish girl blinked up at him, waving a pair of human hands to a clasp. Blinking, the inhuman asked again, "Are you lost." This time, there _was _no question mark tacked at the end. Lloyd frowned.

"I…"

Who was this, anyway? There was no reason for him to trust her, and at that, no reason for him to even think for a second about telling her that he was lost. As human as her body might look, she was still part of the Kaos workforce, and there was good reason she'd take anything Lloyd told her back to her master. He clenched his fists. Now, she didn't pose a threat, but he wouldn't hesitate to burn her the way he'd done to the…(gulp)…succubus. She blinked large eyes at him.

"I'm fine, thank you," he said icily.

"Are you looking for someone?"

Yes, he was, but she didn't need to know that. Lloyd started backing out of this scene very cautiously, trying not to give her any ideas. In the stories his mother used to tell him, fauns were elegant and beautiful to a painter's eye, but when angried, they became vicious and cunning and above all, cannibals. One wrong step, and Lloyd would become someone _else's _dinner. "No. I'm fine." He used the same tone to try and give her the point that he didn't need any help. The faun took a closer step.

_Funny how for a faun that she has human legs, _he thought, looking at the human flesh and feet stuck into a pair of buckled black shoes. Her Tim Burton-inspired tights, woven with deep purple and white, reached up underneath the fluffy skirt, but many cuts and slices in the elastic showed him the white skin underneath. Very human.

"Are you lying to me?"

Lloyd's response was immediate. "No." He kept backing away, but for every step back he took, she took two tiny steps closer, incapable of taking anything above a four-inch heel-to-heel.

"Do you need help?"

"_No." _Lloyd reached an opening to his side, and quickly dove into the area, taking off down the hallway best he could. He twisted his hips to land a shot of ice over the floor to slow her down.

"Wait!" She called. "Don't leave me here! _Please!" _

Lloyd just kept running.

…

Ash sat in the corner of the dead end, playing Sudoku on a piece of paper against his knees, trying to pass the time. It was fun, except for the multiple pencil holes in the paper. It was hard to do this if he didn't have a nice surface to use as a hard board; he'd already tried using the floor and walls, but every position he got into was a failing hurt. He tapped his pencil against his lips and put a _four _into one of the small boxes.

"Don't leave me! PLEASE!"

He knew that voice. Ash glanced down the hall. The sobbing girl-faun emerged from one of the broken off passes into his line of vision, her head hung and her shoulders slumped. This wouldn't be the first time Ash had met up with the pitiful monster by curse, and if you had ever moved through these halls or did your research, you would know _exactly _who she was.

Jeriminé's Curse was in all the mythology textbooks throughout Ninjago, just like the legend of the Shadow Dancers and their walk across the land. Over the years, Jeriminé's tale had turned to one of just ancient folklore, fading into a vast darkness that the ideals of the Serpentine had once been dismissed as, in a new light that people thought of as just something to teach kids to eat their vegetables, or Jeriminé would get them. The Ninjean culture had _also _forgotten that Jeriminé's name was actually pronounced Jer-im-in-ay, instead of the lazy reading of Jer-i-mine. (That last pronunciation is wrong. Do not use it.) Most of the time, Ash just called her "Jeri," said like the male variant of "Jerry," since it was easier than to tongue-twist himself whenever he tried to talk about her.

Jeriminé's Curse started off better than it ended.

Long, long, long, long, LONG before the first Spinjitzu Master had created Ninjago, there was a small island in the middle of where the two halves of Ninjago would meet (if it had existed at the time) named Rumenea. In Rumenea, the people were very much in tune with the fantasy creatures that walked the land—satyrs, nymphs, fauns, faeries, all sorts—but only made peace to the creatures on pacts. Often, satyrs and fauns were cast down by their greed and mischevety, and nymphs were hated for luring wives' husbands into the forest to demean them sexually.

Most likely, the creatures that manifested in Ninjago—particularly the Serpentine and dragons—came from the land of Rumenea as survivors from the mass that killed the small island. In Rumenea, legend says, the Serpentine were depicted as half-human, half-serpent creatures of male and female stature, with the tails of snakes but the upper bodies of humans, fangs perfect with poison, a forked tongue, and hair that molted. Dragons were not foreign to Rumenea, either, but usually, dragons greedily hid away in caves and ate stolen cattle before they actually poked out their heads to face humanity. Ogres, dwarves, everything that you'd see in a movie like _the Hobbit _was actually as real as could've been in Rumenea.

Jeriminé's story says that there once was a young woman, still very naïve, one day was coveted by the idea of being young forever, as she did not want to grow old. The woman went to the nearest spellcrafter (now called a "witch") to cast her a potion that would keep her eternally youthful. The spellcrafter claimed that in order to make this potion, she would need three things from the woman for the spell: a cup of human blood, the most expensive jewel her family owned, and the head of one of her friends. The woman, desperate for her youth, cut the wrist of her sister to fill a cup, then stole her mother's finest jewel, before cutting off the head of her closest friend. She brought all three things to the spellcrafter.

The spellcrafter took all three things, and using magic, turned the woman "eternally young." She skipped out of the shop, happy as can be, and found that everyone in town screamed and ran the other way when they saw her. Confused, the woman went to the nearest river and saw that she had been turned into a faun. She returned to the spellcrafter's shop to demand what had become of her; the spellcrafter merely replied that she _had _turned the woman eternally young by turning her into a faun. Fauns didn't age. The ingredients to the spell had been all of sins committed by a faun and their race: Blood for their insatiable thirst to drink the blood of their victims as a trophy, the jewel for their endless drive of greed to steal from others, and the head to show a faun's desire to kill when angered.

And to make sure she repaid the price for her "eternal youth," the spellcrafter told the woman that for every man she fell in love with, she would have to obey their every wish for five-hundred days, then cut off their heads, just as she'd done to her friend. She would be forced to roam, taking things from people, killing others. The fabricated part of the story, drummed up by parents, was that she ate little children who didn't eat their food.

And so the woman wandered Rumenea, living in the forest in depression, upset by the fact that she could go near no one without scaring them or wanting to take their things. By cutting herself off from humans, she became woeful, and hurt. One day, Rumenea was destroyed by a terrible storm, and the island was destroyed; everything on it died. But many years later, in Ninjago, it was said that late-night sailors saw a figure crawl out of the ocean and creep across the sand, and that creature was believed to be the woman who'd been turned into a faun, her blasphemy of eternal youth saving her from even the natural disaster that had obliviated her home. The woman's name was Jeriminé, and her curse followed her everywhere, no matter where she went, lonely forever because people were so afraid of her that they didn't dare try to make friends. The spellcrafter's name was Katherine. She was _also _believed to have survived, against all odds, the storm.

Ash didn't know how in the hell Kaos had managed to _find _Jeriminé and bring her here, but her curse still lived, making her wander the halls of the bastion until, after being fed up with the five-hundred-year sentence of listening to his ridiculous demands, she was able to rip off his head and keep it on a stick for everyone to see. As scary as the legend made little Jeri out to be, Ash knew she was actually not that scary at all. In fact, he wouldn't mind her company, if there wasn't the large chance that she'd destroy him with just the flick of her wrist as she ripped apart his skull through his eye sockets as her handles. She was just a girl who wandered the halls, weeping all the time, and begging for company that they weren't allowed to give.

Jeri stepped into the hall, looking ruined. "Don't leave me all alone!" she cried. Ash raised an eyebrow from the floor.

What a weird curse.

…  
_~Yin~_

Holding Bokuyo tightly against my chest, I was pretty much speed walking at Jace's side, obeying all the turns this guy made to avoid the trouble he'd been telling me so much about. I knew that if I started running, Bokuyo would get shaken baby syndrome and die, and that was very unacceptable. What kind of flippin' mother would I be if I totally let the baby in my hands die within only a short few hours of living?

"This way," the introduced-Jace said, grabbing my arm and pulling me into a different hallway. I moved a little quicker.

Okay, so you're probably wondering why I trusted this guy so fast, and let me tell you this: I don't. I know that, if I had lingered any longer in the room where Lou and Kyon played pirates and fought out their testosterone, I'd probably be the most insensitively bored girl in the world. That, and I didn't really want to stick around to see which of the two men I hated most in my life won the fight. I had five bucks on Kyon, even though I'd like to take his head and shove it underneath a falling anvil, because—well, dude, my only answer to that is that my dad _dances. _He's going up against Kyon and expecting to win. So not happening there.

But, by all means, let battle commence. I needed the time to escape, and quick.

I've already considered that maybe this zigzagging is gonna put me in a trap. But I have a little hope that this will turn out the way I want it to. Assuming I don't, you know, _die _or anything on the way to the exit.

I kept Bokuyo tight to my chest, but since he's an irritating little bugger, he was starting to make fitful noises. _Oh, what, YOU the uncomfortable one? _I thought, gritting my teeth at how incredibly stupid that was. I was runnin' for my life, and _he _was starting to feel icky because of how fast we were moving? You're joking, right? Where's the _Punk'd_ in that?

Jace looked down at Bokuyo, only half-paying attention, like I was. Mother cruelty? I think _not. _I just so happened to be introverted to the idea of extrovertingly being warm to the baby. (I will _not _say 'my.') I really care about getting us _out _of here first. What good is it to be concerned about a pink-faced chubby wrinkle of skin if you're stuck in Hell's relative for the rest of your life?

Jace turned down another hallway. This time, dude didn't warn me. I had to double-take his next choice before I followed—I mean, dude. Don't _walk _without me!

Bokuyo started to fuss. And that's when shit really hit the fan.

"SHHHH," I urged him, but he started to cry, his face turning into this thing that looked like his face was being smushed against a glass door, his skin all stretched out, mouth wide, nose upturned, and eyes squeezed shut. He started to gaggle his cries. "Oh, my Garmadon; shut it! If I have to live with that crying, I am _never ever ever ever ever _going to have faith in you. Quit."

Jace turned around, rolling his eyes at me. "You need to burp him," he said.

Burp him. Like slap his back until he pukes all over me? What the hell. If _I _can burp on my own, _he _can burp on his own! He doesn't need _me _to do it for him! His little squinches turned into a full-blown cry fest of tears and gabblygook and more tears and snot comin' out his nose. I stopped in the middle of the hallway so I could glare at him. "Shut. It. I'm kind of trying to keep you alive, here! What good is it gonna do if you just tell the whole world we're standing RIGHT HERE? You're terrible. Terrible. You're like a Facebook page; you're letting everyone know what we're doing! SHADDAP ALREADY!"

Jace sighed, annoyed. He doubled back for me, paces ahead already. "Give him here," he said, but in the empty hallway, the wails of Bokuyo ricocheted off the walls, echoing throughout everything—and drew the predators near.

With Bokuyo in Jace's arms, a light hand patting onto his back, he strained forward into the length of the hall, tapping on the small back and trying to keep Bokuyo from continuing the loud fuss he was giving. I facepalmed. Bokuyo, you are _officially _the new bane of my existence and most likely the cause of me being found by your mastermind fa—

"Well. I didn't think it'd be so easy to find you, but you've never been very stealthy, have you, Seiko?"

Jace stopped, finding the emerging figure from a different hallway in front of us running a hand over slick golden hair, sticky with sweat and blood, of to whom it belonged to a mystery. Kyon's destroyed face held splattered blood with temple drizzles, a nosebleed, and a bruise on his cheek beside the scratched lip. Blood soaked the front of his T-shirt. It looked to me like he'd gotten beat pretty good by a dancer.

"Being stealthy is so overrated," I batted my hand dismissively. _This is all your fault, _I thought angrily at Bokuyo. A thin smile stretched over Kyon's lips.

He dusted off his bloody arms. "And my traitorous little friend," he said to Jace, averting attentions. And in the middle of all this, Bokuyo was _still _screaming like a banshee, makin' this a whole lot less heavy than it woulda been if he hadn't. I give him credit for that. "How nice to see you haven't gotten eaten yet."

Jace glared at him. "I'm surprised you haven't yet, either."

Kyon's smile was slimy. "I do have my techniques."

Bokuyo wailed. That made Kyon a _little _bit annoyed, judging by the scowl on his face. He dusted the shoulder of his shirt like he'd just finished a dirty job and nodded to the baby. "Trying to take off with my heir, I see?"

"Congrats, you completed the blindness test and passed!" I said off the top of my head. It made no sense.

"You're one to talk," he said.

"I do that a lot, actually," I retorted, feeling a little weak kneed facing him like this. Facing the man who'd assaulted me without blinking. The man who'd given me the screaming thing. The man who I would hate for the rest of my forsaken lifetime, in here or out there.

I heard the creep of a growl and claws across the tile ground, thinking it was my mind or Kyon before I actually had the balls to turn around and see what there was. My heart dropped to my feet when I saw the creeping, crawling form of some strange demon dog thing, that looked angry enough to eat me through its one blazing red eye. The other was welted shut by a scar as the sealant. Matted, coarse brown fur stood up along the length of his spine. Paws as big as my head held claws as long as Bokuyo, scraping against the ground. The wolfish hound lifted its tail in anticipation. The whole thing was so big he barely scraped the upper floor of the ceiling.

"Well shit." I trembled. I stepped back so that my body touched Jace's lightly. Bokuyo continued to, being a huge baby and no pun intended, scream his fool head off, but I think this time it was at the smell of death that came with the yellow-toothed wolf edging towards our trio. My heart began to pound unconventionally.

I guess this is the part where my story ends, huh?

"While he devours you, I'm going to calmly sip on some chamomile," Kyon said, leaning against the wall so he could _watch _us die. I turned on him, flabbergasted. A tea cup that had not existed four seconds ago brought its brim to his bloodied lips, eyes intensely never leaving mine for so much to span the seconds it would take to let a firework shoot over the sky, laughing at me with the tea reflected into his eyes, making the lacky blue dance.

"What happened to keeping the Yin as your ultimate power?" I asked, trying to appear less than frantic. I'm afraid that's not at all how I came off.

Kyon shrugged, swallowing. "I've actually thought about it while I was messing around with you, and I realized that I don't need you as much as I thought I did. Though keeping you alive would prove to my advantage"—he shrugged, hand slipping into a pocket—"you seem to be a very _rebellious _girl, and I know that'll bite my rear end if I let you live. I will, however, take the boy and ask my demon to make it quick for you."

I looked up at Bokuyo, and saw how annoying his crying face would be. Being cornered by a tall wolf that would take both Jace and me out in once swipe of its massive paw really made you think about the priorities you wanted to set out for yourself, realizing that your very first one should not be your survival, but the remain of your son. Making sure Bokuyo lived would be generous. Motherly.

But, Kyon is a dick, and I don't follow _anyone's _rules. Not even my own. I reached out my hands for Bokuyo's company. Willingly, yeah, I know. Weird. Alternate universe, go!

Jace looked at me like I was nuts. "You can't give him up!" He said, but I only shoved my hands closer, wrapping them around the tiny waist of the baby and pulling him out of Jace's grip. Bokuyo fit perfectly in the curve of my chest and kept his head tucked against my collar bone. I smiled at Kyon. Wanna know what I think? "Fuck you," I said sweetly.

His face darkened. "Shame." He snapped his fingers. "Slaughter her," he ordered. The wolf growled, and a pool of spit dripped from his mouth. I looked up at Jace, looking for something, but all I found there was, _I'll hold him off, and you go _bravery flashing in his eyes. He was going to sacrifice himself to save me and Bokuyo.

My fear, lightheadedness, and unsureness brought me to only one conclusion of the night. One choice I could make without Jace's help.

I ran.

…

"I'm no _idiot." _Kyon reached out his hands, grabbing me by the sleeve of my robe and pulling me towards him, shaking Bokuyo so badly with the tug that he started to cry again. I cried out. The long yank sent me crashing down onto the floor, where I slammed my tailbone to the ground, sending a large shock of pain up my back that exploded in the back of my head, making me believe that I had broken it when I fell somehow. My head slamming to the wall, I felt something drizzle, warm and wet, down my temple and onto the collar of the complimentary robe that Kyon gave me, kind of like a, "Yeah, I just forced you to sleep with me and bear my child; have this crappy, thin robe for your services!"

Yeah. Not cool.

My head spun, but I knew that if I was going to keep myself alive—and keep _Bokuyo _alive while I was at it—I needed to haul my ass and get moving. The blood wasn't much of a bother to me. I tried to figure out how to avoid my pounding tailbone's brand new knifing pain while coming to a stand, also holding the baby in my arms, _also _bleeding, _also _all this other stuff, like being advanced on by a psychotic creep-o while I was still in _mayday _form. Kyon scowled hatefully at me.

"I hate it when I'm disobeyed," he said, stopping above me and giving me the Stink Eye. I had already seen the Stink Eye _millions _of times before, like when I got it from other inmates at Sunnyside when I told them something horrible about insane people. That, or I usually just got a blank look. Most of the time, it was a blank look. People were just that way.

"That sucks," I said, scooting backwards, but Kyon reached down for me to stop the escape. I slapped at his hand. "Hands off the merchandise," I warned, and he looked ready to throttle me till my intestines flew out my mouth so he could strangle me with them.

Kyon's spite was suddenly knocked abrupt when, by the corner of my vision, I saw a fast figure slam into his body, taking him down several feet away. Jace punched him in the face, then whirled at me. "Seiko!" he yelled. "Go!"

I scrambled to my feet, if you can even call the wiggling wall-leaning a 'scramble.' I tried my fastest to reach the pads of my feet—and not a moment too soon, either. One growl from the demon wolf somewhere behind me gave me the thought to actually _look _at who it was that was woofing my way. Using the wall as my prop, I found the haunches of the wolf risen to full height, and his slow creep across the tile towards me announced by his long nails scraping the ground. Teeth bore. Ready to rip off my head, basically.

What a comforting thought.

I glanced over at Jace, and he was having a hard time keeping up with Kyon's counterattacks. "SEIKO!" he yelled, getting hit in the jaw. I looked at the wolf creeping towards me from the other end, then at the fight blocking my other exit. There was hardly a chance out of here.

"Left, five, right, two, left, seven, right!" yelled Jace. I stared towards him for a second. He was telling me something important, I could feel it—or that fist to the head had shaken up some nuts on the inside of his noodle. What exactly was that supposed to mean? "Run!"

He slammed Kyon to the wall, giving me enough space to run past them down the hallway. The bay of the wolf behind me was loud, resounding for the blood I was spilling out my head like a fruit gusher, but keeping the crying Bokuyo pressed to my shoulder. Running for the end of the hall and trying to keep as steady and unshaky grip on him as I could, I reached the two separate hallways and realized I had nowhere to go.

The wolf pounded closer, howling.

_Left, five, right, two, left, seven, right!_

It was _directions. _How to get out of here.

I bolted down the left hallway, hearing the roaring wolf slam hard into the wall. Five…five what? Five hallways, of course! This place was famous with them, having several breeching off every hallway there was to be had in a staggered formation so Kyon could confuse everyone. I counted the hallways I passed on either side. "One," I gasped. The ground shook as the wolf came after me. "Two." The second one on the left zipped past me. "Three." Right. "Four." Left. "Five!' Right. I darted down the hallway quickly, keeping the wolf skidding again past me, tripping for a stop.

I did the same thing. I didn't know where these coordinates Jace gave me would lead, but I sure as hell was thankful that I had him here to guide me. For a little longer, at least.

…

"Lloyd!" shouted Kai, desperate to find his friend in the web Kaos had woven for the Ninja to fall through. They'd already wasted time listening to Dani give an explanation of the Pandemonium Bastion maze and all the booby traps, _and _what was going on, _and _that there were Nightmare demons in the hallways that would consume consume consume until they were fully fed, which normally killed a person. With Lloyd in here all alone, there was a heck of a chance that he'd already met a Nightmare—or was meeting one right now.

"We can't split up," said Cole, arguing behind him with Maya, who thought that was an excellent plan. "That makes us weaker. Plus, it decreases our chances of getting out of here as a group."

"You _know _we won't all get out of here as a group," hissed Maya.

"No. That's final."

"UGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH."

Kai jogged further up the hall, looking down every breakoff to see if Lloyd's figure, fallen or standing, was in any of them, but his sights weren't catching onto any familiar golden haloes. He clenched his fists. Kai's responsibility to Lloyd was horrible.

"But if we're all walking around here in a friggin' cluster, we're not going to cover any serious ground."

"We're _not _splitting up."

"You heard the witch. She said we have to get to the Heart through all these mazes. We obviously can't get there if we're all heading the same direction!"

"But one group finds it, then what? How is everyone else going to know if they found it?"

"Yell for them?"

_"_Great way to alert Kaos that we're here_. _We're. Not. Splitting. Up."

Kai's muscles twitched. Dammit, Lloyd, why did you have to run _away?_

…

His powers wouldn't work.

Kyon tried and tried and tried to activate them so he could fake himself out of being beaten by Jace, but like it had with Lou, he couldn't summon them. It felt like he didn't even HAVE any. He couldn't grab his power, envelope himself in it, and disappear; it wasn't like the feeling he got when he didn't have any life-force to sustain him. it felt simply like he was just a boring human with no magical connection whatsoever. He'd just consumed so much of Seiko's life-force that he SHOULD'VE been sustained, but now, he couldn't even trick Jace's mind? Where did his _powers _go?

Jace punched him so hard that the shadow staff, tucked behind his back, fell out when Kyon hit the ground. It clattered across the ground. Too far away to touch. Too distanced to reach. Kyon tried to sit up, but all his wounds were starting to tell him otherwise.

Jace grabbed it. "This is for Seiko!" he yelled.

Then he took the heavy end of the staff and swung it against Kyon's head.

The pain was inscrutable. Without his power, Kyon might as well have been a boring baker without any qualities better than decorating birthday cakes. His fighting skills were terrible, he hardly had any witty comebacks, and worst of all, he couldn't escape without faking being there so the battle would still think he was there. He was stuck trying to keep his head on straight while being destroyed by his own creation.

"You rotten fool," Kyon spat out blood on the white floor, already painted with it. "You've betrayed me."

"Oh, big time," Jace said, and rearing back the staff like a golf club, he swung it against Kyon's back. There was a crack of a broken rib. Spit dribbled out the mouth of the half-breed, trying to find air in the fluid filling his lungs. He gasped for breath, a fish out of water, writhing against the floor in a pool of his own vomit and blood. Jace, the avenging angel, stood over him with the staff in hand. Kyon coughed out blood.

"You never were my favorite," he wheezed.

"Ditto," Jace said, and bringing up the staff, he appeared to be readying himself to bring it down hard against Kyon's skull to break it open and kill the predator forever.

Two hands appeared on either of Jace's cheeks from behind him, and twisted, hard. A loud _snap _introduced the drop of his cold body, harder than rock, onto the cold floor of the hallway that insulated the clanging of the shadow staff falling to the ground out of his grasp. Kyon glanced up in black-dotted vision to see Fang standing where Jace once had, and the corpse of the broken-necked Jace, an avenger of young women, lay still at his boots. Fang raised an eyebrow. "You look pathetic," he told Kyon.

Kyon spat more blood. "At least I can trust _you_," he said, pushing himself onto his back. He threw his arm over his eyes. The sounds of Fang's boots squeaking the ground towards his master was the only reason Kyon peeked over at him.

"I just thought I'd let you know that _they're _here."

"The Ninja?"

"Mmmhmmm."

"Damn." He sighed. "How did they _get _here?"

"Dunno, but the Green Ninja isn't with them."

This was music to Kyon's ears. "He isn't?" Knowing there was a trick to the absence of the most important part of the equation, he rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up with his sore arms, tired of giving punches to traitors. Fang watched by idly.

"Nope. I think he got lost."

"Seems logical."

"I also don't know where Ash is."

Kyon shrugged. He couldn't care less where Ash was, only that his sanctum was being infiltrated by a bunch of fools wearing pajama suits. He wiped his chin of blood and gore and added a finalizing kick to Jace's ribs, letting his dead body know that he was hated and never accepted into this palace again. "Let's go," he growled. "I have a loose Yin to catch and a son to obtain."

…

"Okay, new plan! Everyone!" Cole waved his arms to get everyone's attention. Zane, stroking the falcon on his shoulder and thinking about how fun it would be to bring him back to the monastery so he could show Nya his new pet, stopped instants before he crashed into Cole's broad, black back, and took a step back so the hand gestures wouldn't smack him upside the head. Cole's turning gave him a sorry glance. "I knew you were there," he said. "Wasn't tryin' to hit you, buddy."

Zane smiled. "Okay." He tugged on Cole's shoulder pad, making him glance over in silver again. "Are we climbing through those air ducts?" He asked, pointing to the vents on the ceiling. The leader shook his head.

Cole gathered everyone near, making sure that all eyes were on him. Zane nudged Jay's arm with his elbow to get his attention. When Jay looked over expectantly, raising a slit eyebrow, Zane whispered, "Pass it on."

Jay snorted. "Listen," he whispered back.

"I think that we should split up," Cole announced. At Zane's side, the girl who looked like Miss Seiko but everyone kept mentioning as Maya—really, really, really confusing Zane any more than he already was—looked exasperated, and opened her mouth to cuss him out, but Cole slapped a gloved hand over her lips quicker than Zane saw him do it. Zane was amazed by the speed. "Yes, I know I said we wouldn't," he stressed, flicking a glance at Maya-slash-Seiko, "but now that I think about it, you're right. I'll take Jay, Kai, and Zane, and we'll go looking for Lloyd. The rest of you should go with Dani, since she knows the way back to the heart, and find out where Seiko and Kaos are. Since I can seriously get a huge whiff of Danielle's perfume, I'll follow the scent down your trail, and we'll catch up with you as soon as we find Lloyd."

Zane thought that was a good plan—then again, what did he know about plans?—but he heard a couple grumbles from Noel and an utter disagreement from Damon. "No! I need to help you find my son—"

"They will find him," Sensei Wu assured him, placing a hand on his brother's shoulder. "My Ninja are a team. They'd never leave him behind."

"But—"

"Do it," Sensei Wu said, trust gleaming in his eyes. Zane watched him all but swell with pride.

Jay pulled up his hood, and every other Ninja followed suit. Cole started down the hallway, Kai and Jay quickly catching up to him, but Zane looked over his shoulder and waved. "Goodbye, Sensei," he said, and at the sound of Kai calling his name, he drug his eyesight over the faces of his friends. He was glad to have people so nice and caring as his family.

Sensei almost smiled under his beard. "Go, Ninja," he told Zane softly, "go."

Zane ran for the cluster waiting for him, catching up quickly. Before they turned down a hallway, he was able to glimpse the smile of Sensei Wu watching him go for the very last time.

…

"Oh, my students," Sensei whispered, and turned down the hallway to follow the crowd.

_I feel there is something very special about you, Zane. _

_But you're SENSEI! You're supposed to have all the answers! You have a long white BEARD!_

_What are we supposed to do, spank him?_

_Guess they didn't want a second serving of these babies! Good thing they didn't check out the merchandise in the BACK!_

_There's so many! Elves and gingerbread people everywhere! I've never fought little people before! We're TOAST!_

_It's a good thing we're in a museum, because we're about to become history!_

_Crime doesn't pay, Muchacho. You can take that to the bank._

_BUTTS ARE FOR SITTING!_

_Wait a minute…I'm still black!_

_My friend cannot speak, but he wants to know if you like blue._

_If I see even one girl in here, I'm gonna go ballistic._

_Zane, you're like a machine. Don't change anything!_

_Sensei, will I become the Green Ninja?  
It is too early to tell. But if it is in your path, you'll know._

_I followed a bird.  
WHY did you follow a bird?  
Because it danced.  
OH, okay. Was it a cuckoo bird?_

_We get to fight? WHOOHOO! I've got happy feet!_

_Fuc—I mean, fudge._

_But did you see how I kicked him in the face? I'm an asset! I kick butt! And face._

_I spy….pppppffffff…ANOTHER TREE!_

_Never put off till tomorrow what can be done today._

Chuckling to himself, using the cane for its purpose, Wu could only come to the conclusion that he loved them very, very much.

…

"I think we already passed that corner."

"Jay, there are, like, four hundred corners that look just like that corner."

"Yeah, but this _hallway—"_

"STOP!" Cole stopped too abruptly in the middle of the white floor, making the other three run right into his back. They all fell into a pile of color against the ground. Cole groaned. Okay, remind him never to expect them to have all ears listening when they were bickering ever again. He shoved on the shoulder of Jay so the others would get off him. Not their most elegant performance ever…

When Cole was free, he stood up, dusting off his pants. Kai punched Jay in the arm, slender eyebrows sternly furrowing at the blue ninja, rubbing his shoulder and shimmying two steps over. "Dummy! Watch where you're going!"

"Hey, _you _were the one who fell on _me!" _

The Falcon came to a fluttering parry towards Zane, ready to perch on something. Zane smiled and stuck out his elbow, but in the process punching Kai in the side of the face when Zane scarecrowed his arm straight out. "OW!" Zane looked curiously around the Falcon's body at Kai, flipping back his hood and rubbing his cheek. He glared at Zane.

"My apologies."

Cole sighed. They were seriously out of shape. "Quit fighting!" he said loudly, getting everyone's attention. "We're trying to find _Lloyd, _not kill each other before we do!"

"Uh, yeah, this plan is sinking," Jay said. He pulled back his hood. "We've been down this hallway three times."

Cole narrowed his eyes, crossing his arms. "How do you know that?"

Jay pointed to the wall, where a single crack departed the surface. "I saw that more than once," he claimed, letting his hands fall to fists on his hips. "Can't you sniff him out or something?" Jay asked, while Cole searched the room for some way they hadn't taken.

"I'm a vampire, not a bloodhound," Cole growled. He opened his lips and tasted the air for signs of Lloyd, as he'd been doing, trying to find his taste through the scent, but like all the other times it failed.

"Ew. What are you doing with your mouth?" Jay asked, sounding disgusted.

"He is trying to locate Lloyd," Zane wisely answered, smiling. Jay raised an eyebrow.

"By opening his mouth?"

"It's called _tasting_, I think."

"I'm confused."

"Hello, Confused," Kai retorted. "I swear my annoying friend Jay was just here."

"Ha, ha. You're hilarious."

"I try."

"Will you two SHUT UP?" Cole asked, whirling on them. This was getting them nowhere. He pointed to the nearest doorway. "Let's go here."

"Eenie, meenie, miney, moe…"

"Jay, what the hell are you doing?" growled Kai.

"Well, Cole obviously has no clue where we're going, so I'm picking a different door."

Cole wanted to bash his head against the wall. What was WRONG with these two? Jay and Kai seemed to all of the sudden feel like fighting; Zane was about as helpful as a toothbrush; and Cole was starting to get frustrated with their shit. He grabbed tightly onto the corner of the wall and clutched tightly at the sheetrock. "What's wrong with you two?" He asked. Jay glared at Kai's turned-away face.

"He's irritating." Kai jammed a thumb over his shoulder. Jay looked exasperated. He threw up his arms.

"_I'm _irritating?!" Jay crossed his arms, scowling. "_You're _the annoying one! Mr. Tougher-than-Anyone My-Crap-Is-Impressive I'm-Better-than-My-Friends!"

Kai turned on him. "Oh yeah? At least _I'm _not the one who makes jokes about important, serious things!"

Zane blinked at the floor, somber. He didn't like fighting. "You both have your own unique qualities that—"

"SHUT UP, ZANE!" they yelled in unison. Cole opened his mouth, but Jay was already quick to come back. His eyes lit with fire almost as broad as Kai's own. "You're just an egotistical dick who can't leave nice people like me alone!"

"How would you know ANYTHING about who I am?" Kai snarled. "All you do is make googly eyes at my sister and try to impress her with your lame ass personality!

"At least I'M not the one who told Lloyd, a _boy, _that I was IN LOVE WITH HIM!"

Cole jumped in between them as soon as Kai dove for Jay's throat, using all his strength to force the fire ninja back against the wall so the bloodthirsty boy didn't try to kill the other one. Murder was written all over his face. Cole was so glad that he was way stronger than Kai, and kept him pinned there as he struggled, trying to get his attention away from Jay as he spat out insults at him right and left. Sensei trusted them to go find Lloyd, and that seemed like a good idea, but—why did this happen? What changed? Why were they so hateful of each other? They had been just fine when they started off here, but—but why were they doing this now?

"Calm!" Cole told Kai as he thrashed against him.

"Let me go!" He angrily shoved against Cole, but the vampire relentlessly pushed back.

"_Calm. Down."_

"You heard what he said to me! Don't _tell_ _me _to calm down!"

"It wasn't right of him to say that," Cole agreed, "but we need to find Lloyd. Remember that."

Kai growled in anger.

…

Zane looked up at the vents he thought that they'd have to crawl through when the Falcon squawked at them. He was surprised at seeing a thinly green gas pouring out the outlet, dissipating when it expanded into white, but green when it was born all the same. He gasped.

That had to be what was making the other boys so worked up!

"Cole!" he said.

"BUSY, Zane!" Cole growled, trying to keep Kai in check.

"No, Cole, look!"

Cole glanced over at him underneath his bangs, then, when Zane pointed to the vent, glanced up. Kai and Jay did the same. "That's something," Zane announced brightly, reaching over to pat Jay on the shoulder. The pinched expression of the blue ninja turned on him quizzically. "I think that is our problem. Evil is trying to turn us on one another. So it isn't you two actually being mean! It's the evil fart gas!"

Cole chuckled. "Zane, you're a genius," he complimented, releasing Kai slowly.

"Thank you, but it was the Falcon's discovery." He smiled at the bird on his arm. The Falcon got up and "danced."

Kai visibly shrank. Jay looked miserable. Zane opened his arms to both of them, inviting them to hug when Cole let Kai go, but they didn't hug, only give looks between one another that looked quite apologetic. "Aw, crap, dude, I'm so sorry," Jay said, looking contrite. "I never would've said that—"

"I never should've said those things, either," Kai said. "I'm sorry, too."

Cole clapped hands down on each other's shoulders. "So it's agreed, then," he said, smiling. "We're all going to keep looking."

Jay rubbed his neck. "Yeah," he sheepishly said. Zane twitched his nose. "But I still think we should do eenie-meenie to figure out which way to go."

"Or we can all pick a hall and settle this like men," Kai offered, holding out a fist. "Rock paper clamp, anyone?"

…

Lloyd's feet said they couldn't carry him any further, but his mind didn't fail to tell it that if they ceased, he'd get eaten by one of the monsters he'd come across and become someone's dinner. He jumped at every odd sound, turned when he heard something behind him, and nailed a fist to every nightmare he saw. He was glad his ninja skills put death to the idea of him being quickly caught.

There was a doorway at the end of this hall. Granted, there were, like, a gillion OTHER doorways, but this one had a big door on it. There were hardly any other doors that Lloyd had seen in this place, just hallways with more hallways, but this one had a DOOR. There was something special about it. He could feel it.

No help came from the Eye. As usual. What had made it suddenly turn so quiet? He hadn't heard that voice in so long that it was a little discomfiting.

Lloyd's sweaty palm closed around the door handle, and he yanked it wide open, stepping through it into the pale glistening light that was not of another hallway, but of a wide, circular room. He stopped. In the center of the room, a little round of soft white recliners awaited around a small table that held an unfinished game of black and white chess. A small side table held a lamp. Two stained glass windows on the wall next to him depicted things other than an angel from heaven, but no light shone from behind them, making their dark hues of purple, blue, red, and other blackening things menacing. He stepped in slowly, closing the door, and saw that there were four other doors spread around the circular tomb, leading elsewhere. Small tables beside each door held dead plants in white pots.

In here, he felt safer than he did out there. In the maze, he meant. There, it was a dangerous place, but here…Nothing was here. Nothing hazardous, unless you counted chucking around chess pieces as a hazard. He made sure the door was closed tightly behind him before adventuring into the wide room of nothing but a coupla chairs and dead plants. Weird that some place would have just that…

His footsteps echoed over the tall ceiling. Looking up, a magnificent diamond shard chandelier dangled overhead. What _was _this place?

Lloyd drug his fingers over the back of a recliner, heart starting to finally stop thundering. It had been moving faster than he'd recognized in there. He counted his exhales to make this a little easier to handle, and looked at each of the white doors.

Where did they lead? More traps, mazes, and nightmares? Or someplace else?

Lloyd didn't know that he wanted to risk a try. He touched the softly weathered chair again and drew back his hand. Who knows what happened on those cushions.

Lloyd was considering his options in each door when one vibrantly flew open as if someone kicked it. He quickly leaped on the defense. The door slammed against the wall inside of the circle, and in reveal, Lloyd was faced with the sound of a baby wailing bloody murder before he saw a young girl jump out of the doorway, long black hair flying in the air behind her. Lloyd kept his muscles taut but watched. Failing to notice him, she whirled and, holding the baby with one arm, grabbed onto the plant beside the doorway, her fingers digging into the soil on the other side of the brim. Her chest heaved.

Lloyd then saw the large, angry, frothing werewolf-thing racing towards her from the hallway, bigger than any dog that he'd ever seen in his entire life. Bigger than the Rottweiler twins that defended Darkley's before Finn poisoned them with the lunch meat. Its eyes flashed red, bloody daring for her, foam spilling over its lips in temptation. Lloyd prepared himself to jump over and help the mysterious girl with a kid in her arm. It seemed that she didn't need him.

Grunting loudly, the girl gave a cry of devotion as she hurled the plant into the doorway, her aim from this angle not seeming to prove fit—until the large white pot crashed into the werewolf's face, and it howled, stumbling over itself inches from the door with splinters of glass shards stuck into its face. The girl quickly wrapped her hand around the wooden edge of the door and slammed it shut seconds before the wolf could slam into it. Both arms returned to her screaming child, and jumping back, there was a thud against the door, but a strange hiss of smoke came from the cracks edging the wooden access and floated to the ceiling. Silence followed from the werewolf. The crying of the baby echoed around the empty room and filled Lloyd's ears a little too fully. He winced.

"Shhh," she cooed. Her back was to him. A back covered by pools of long, wavy black hair to her mid-spine, and if he wasn't mistaken, he thought he saw _flowers _woven into her hair, beachy colors plaited into her tresses. A silky silver robe held her body snugly, giving him eyesight of every curve she had—she was a small girl, looking not to be very big in feet, between five and six somewhere. "Hush, now. It's okay." She whispered soft words to the child that Lloyd couldn't hear, but feeling a knotted in his stomach, the stance he'd taken on to fight slowly melted into nothing. He stared. The deep voice of the girl was not deep and manly, but deep and _entertaining _and liquid to hear, music touching his ears when he realized she was starting to sing to the baby. Lloyd was held captive by speechless words that couldn't blossom by the sound of her voice.

_"Under your spell again  
I can't say no to you  
Crave my heart and it's bleeding in your hand  
I can't say no to you  
Shouldn't let you torture me so sweetly  
Now I can't let go of this dream  
I can't breathe but I feel  
Good enough  
I feel good enough for you  
Drink up sweet decadence  
I can't say no to you  
And I've completely lost myself  
And I don't mind  
I can't say no to you."_

Both Lloyd and the baby had nothing to say. Not that Lloyd had made noise before this, but now the baby was still and silent too, spellbound by the girl's voice in the same way that Lloyd was. His muscles had fallen slack, his lips had parted, and his eyes listened to all the details he could see of her from the back.

"There," she said softly. "All better now. Let's see how we get out of here, shall we?"

The girl turned around.

Lloyd sucked in a breath. The girl was around his age, if not older; her cheeks were thin and her face lost all roundness it had before. A drizzle of dried blood caked the right half of her face. Gray eyes looked out at him, pivotal and gleaming, eyelashes full and black. When she saw him, she gasped, eyes going wide not with shock, but fear. She immediately shrouded the tiny baby in his arms from being taken away by Lloyd. The pure white skin tone had disappeared to normal again. Her small nose had turned elegant and perfectly proportioned with her face, and the curve of her tiny lips had gotten fuller, and were no longer red. The bangs that Lloyd had known to cover her eye were gone.

She stared at him.

He stared at her.

It was hard to recognize her, but he knew.

Lloyd took two steps back.

She edged away.

The giant room was silent as the two examined each other, mistaking each other for dangerous liaisons rather than old friends. The last he'd saw of her, she'd been trying to suck out his soul. The last she'd seen him, it was battling with a savior of her life. And neither was willing to believe that, with all the crazy shit that had happened, there was a possibility that both of them were the real thing.

There wasn't any noise but a cough from the baby and the sound of her tortured breathing.

Lloyd clenched and unclenched his fists, itching for elements, and took another step back. She turned the baby in her arms so that its body was pressed to her shoulder, cheek resting against the soft curve it made, and tiny fists tucked at its sides. The suspicious edge in her eyes lasted all the seconds the silence did.

Her eyes moved up and down him briskly, taking him in. He didn't take his eyes off her aged face.

He saw the mark of the Eye on the back of her right hand.

She looked at his chest as he took in a deep breath.

She was the first one to speak. And it was…well, a doozy.

"When we were trapped in a cell in the Underworld," she barked quickly, staring at Lloyd with wide eyes, "we discussed our pasts. We started talking about Cole and I started to cry, and as you comforted me, you told me something extremely wise. Something about forgetting my past and moving on. What was it?"

Lloyd stared at her. He faintly remembered that conversation. He remembered that day he'd found out she was blind. He had pulled her into his arms, held her against him, and let her cry over the awful things that had happened to her, soaking in the pain for her so that she could feel a little better. He remembered that part the most. Just a young girl, as pained as he'd been when he was little, being forced to lose her brother and deal with all that pain all her life on her own. He'd felt horrible.

But…he remembered.

"What matters is how we are today, not how we were yesterday. That's why our eyes are in the _front _of our head rather than the back: so we can face the sun and let our shadows fall away behind us." Lloyd blinked.

Seiko's old eyes flooded with tears, relief, and joy. Lloyd watched her bring a hand to cover her mouth so the tears could fall across her face. "Oh, my God, Twinkies," she sobbed, taking her hand away. "It really _is_ you." She smiled through her happy tears, and started running towards him, bare feet making noise against the tile floor and her robe flowing behind her in a silver stream of delight.

Lloyd didn't know he moved until he met her halfway, his arms already open for her to jump into his embrace. Keeping her careful arm around the baby, she wrapped one arm around his neck, letting herself be lifted into the air as Lloyd pulled her legs around his waist, sobbing and laughing all at once into his throat. Wet tears drizzled over his jugular and falling down to the pendant around his neck. He kept both hands underneath her legs to hold up her weight, but buried his face in her hair, heart pumping this time out of relief and happiness that she was okay—if not older. Older, somehow, by around three years. How she'd aged was a mystery, but right now, he didn't care. He laughed alongside her voice, so glad that she was alive. He felt her heartbeat singing in tune with his.

He spun her around gently, so he wouldn't shake the baby. Bokuyo, he guessed. He planted a relieved kiss on the crown of her head. "You're alive," he whispered, not daring to say she was _okay. _What had happened to her never left people okay.

"You came for me."

"Of course I did." She pulled back. _Makeup _streamed down her face, running with her tears, but Seiko laughed, using her free hand to place over the back of his neck and bring his forehead to hers. Lloyd closed his eyes.

She was safe now.

"How did you get away from him?" Lloyd asked, not having to speak the implied name to the _him_, setting her on the ground but keeping his arms around her. Seiko seemed, for once, not to mind being touched by a human being and sniffled. God, she was so much taller. She didn't have to tilt her head all the way back to look at him anymore. He tenderly swiped at the blood matted to her cheek with his thumb.

"Jace," she snuffled. Lloyd used his finger to gently draw away the stray tears coming from her eyes. "He's Jay's Bizarro. He helped me run." Seiko exhaled and buried her face in his chest. "I think he's dead. He and Kyon fought, and—"

"Who?" Lloyd frowned at hearing his name. He gently pushed her back so he could look her in the eye.

Seiko's eyes drizzled black. It looked like she cried charcoal. "Kyon." She wiped her sleeve across her nose. "Lloyd, he's your—"

"Say 'doppelganger' and I'll have to slit your throat with my fingernail," said a voice, very similar to Lloyd's own, but there was none of his scratchy tone to it. His head snapped up.

Kaos stood at the opposite end of the room, the golden Shadow Key in his hand. He tapped the thick handle against his palm and wandered forward, dressed in blood from head to toe: Clothes soaked with it, splattered over his face, matting his hair and dribbling out his lip and nose, a mirror image of Lloyd (without the Ninja suit) kicked a door shut behind him. His thin smile was angry, and his eyes were vengeful.

Lloyd moved Seiko behind him.

"Oh don't bother," said Kyon, laughing at him. "You'll both be dead soon anyway, so why would it matter where she stands? You're doomed, little Ninja." He clutched onto the Shadow Key, smirking. "Any last words?" he asked, advancing on them.

But before he could move any further, a large ball of fire was hurled across the room, catching Kyon in the chest. He wailed on his way to the floor, screeching in pain that he'd just been burned by fire—fire that hadn't come from Lloyd. He stared at his hand, wondering if he'd done it without _knowing _he'd done it (was that possible?) when he heard the voice that made shivers run up his spine speak from the doorway beside the one Lloyd had taken. He turned around in shock.

"How 'bout these: I don't _think _so."

He'd never been more relieved to see the others—_and _their witty comebacks. Kai's hands, raging with red fire, smoked out as he came forward, looking more pissed off than Lloyd admitted to _ever _seeing him. His face scowled towards Kyon. The others jumped out from behind him: Jay twirled nunchucks through the air, mask pulled up over his face; Zane's shurikens spun around his fingers; Cole kept his scythe on his back. He pulled away his hood, turning immediately to Seiko, where he rushed over. He recognized her far quicker than Lloyd had.

"Seiko," he breathed, pulling her to him for a really brief hug. He looked desperate and thankful all at once. Seiko looked like she thought she'd stepped into an alternate universe where her brother actually didn't insult her every sentence he said. She eyeballed him. "How bad?" he asked lowly, menacing tone not for her.

"I have a kid. You tell me."

"He's so fucking dead." Cole pulled up his hood. _Then _the scythe came out.

Lloyd ushered Seiko back so that Cole, Zane, Jay, and Kai could form a cordon before them, one that, after gently nudging her face with his nose and whispering a quick, "_Stay back," _Lloyd joined. His hands torched with green power.

Kyon was getting to his feet, dazed. He looked a little scared. Cole chuckled at Lloyd's side. "You're _really _going to wish you stopped messing with us the first time, kid," he said.

Kyon wiped his bloody lips. Kai pulled out his sword. "I mean, seriously. When, in the history of _all _our battles, has an enemy actually won?" He prompted.

"There's a first time for everything," Kyon said.

Jay laughed. "And that time is _not _today." His nunchucks spun faster, ready to hurt.

"We are going to mop the floor with you!" Zane said cheerfully. Lloyd resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Only Zane could say that and turn it into something that didn't imply danger AT ALL.

"NinjaaaaaGOOOO!" Lloyd cried, and spun into a tornado.

The others followed suit. Well, except Zane. Zane just sort of stood there and watched. Kyon looked like a terrified little kid that was about to get spanked by his parents; Lloyd just laughed at that. As scary as he had been before, he didn't seem like anything but a twerp now. Lloyd would happily destroy him.

…

Zane walked backwards and touched Seiko's shoulder. "I am glad you are alive," he said. She looked worried.

"Uh, sure."

Zane smiled again. "You look older."

"That's cuz I kinda…am."

"Oh."

"Yeah…"

"It looks better on you."

"What?"

"Being older looks better on you." Zane giggled. "You look very pretty."

"Say that again, and I'll have to pull out your tongue."

He laughed. "Can I hold the baby?" He asked. Seiko's eyes nervously flickered back to the Spinjitzu. She transferred the baby to Zane's arms carefully, the adorable little thing half asleep, and he smiled happily. "He's cute!"

Seiko looked at the fight, not even listening. Zane looked over. This was twice now that he got to hold a baby!

But all was not okay.

Because at that exact moment, a door got thrown open, and Zane watched as a dart of black shot through the opening and right into the middle of the fight. All four of the Ninja were pushed back, yelling as they were chucked onto the ground some feet away. Zane gasped.

Kyon was lifted by the throat and slammed into the wall. He looked with wide eyes at the small, blackhaired girl that was now capturing him in a death grip, baring long fangs at him. Zane's brows rose. It was Maya! "I'm going to _ruin _you," she hissed, and dove straight for his throat.

"WAIT! I ALREADY DEMANDED A REMATCH!" Noel barreled through the door, running for the feast Maya was about to have. "I NEVER GET TO BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF PEOPLE! DON'T TAKE AWAY OPPORTUNITY!"

Yuki, Sensei, Damon, and Danielle walked slowly through the door after them. Zane watched Yuki, Wu, and Dani just walk towards Zane and Seiko, ignoring the fight, while Damon ran over to Lloyd. Zane held up the baby. "Lookie, Sensei! Another baby!"

Sensei looked sad. He said nothing. Seiko edgily moved behind Zane when Danielle came close, but when she held out a small container of something, Seiko narrowed her eyes. "It'll make you stop aging!" she urged. "Take it! Hurry!"

Yuki bowed to Zane. "Hello again."

Zane giggled. "Konichiwa!" He remembered from some of the things Seiko had told him. He turned to her. She was just downing the fluid inside of Dani's remedy, a sour look on her face, passing back the glass vial when he saw her. "How did I do?" He asked. Seiko looked at him, her face strange.

Then her eyes rolled in the back of her head, and she fell.

* * *

**Lyrics belong to "Good Enough" by Evanescence. **

**Only a few chapters left!**

**Go have an awesome day/night!**


	82. Chapter 82

**OMG THE MOST IMPORTANT CHAPTER IN THIS BOOK YOU MUST READ IT AND YOUR MIND WILL BE BLOWN GAH**

**and plus only like 2 chapters left OMGOMGOMG**

* * *

**CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO:  
**Shadow Dancer, The Autumn of Twilight, The Kingdom of Death, and Today

Wu moved fast enough to catch Seiko before she hit the floor, weaving himself into the spot underneath her head before gently setting her down neatly. Yuki bent down at her side and immediately scanned for a pulse, even though her eyes were open (and back to normal) and she was taking a deep breath. Wu supposed he was just being as cautious as he could manage. Seiko groaned and brought her hands to her face, giving a loud noise. "What the HELL, Witch Bitch?" She loudly erupted, glaring into Danielle's eyes. "What was THAT for?!"

Dani remained calm. "The medicine is trying to stop your body from aging so quickly. I guess the taste was a little too potent." She smirked.

"I swear," Seiko sat up with Wu's help, angrily continuing her rant, "I'm going to throw you out the freakin' window for that. Thanks for warning me."

"You're welcome."

"UGGGHHH." Wu supposed that Seiko was not very fond of Danielle. Understatement of the century.

…

Kyon slammed his hand against Maya's temple, making the vampire quickly drop. Noel stepped over her as she crawled away, letting Noel have the fight now. The fireball of Noel's body was coming for him, but Kyon was not going to sufficiently make it out of this while avoiding a walking human torch and four tornados of Spinjitzu, cornering him against the wall. His only option was a near door. None of them were close enough for _that _plan to work; without his powers, strangely missing, Kyon was just a fly on the wall about to be swat with a fly-zapper. He gulped as each of the Ninja died away from their Spinjitzu to hold all their weapons out, directly facing him, looking smug.

"End of the line, Kyon," said Lloyd, eyes flashing.

"Not yet," he said, eyeballing Noel—he was the one that Kyon was afraid of. His hands were lava, waiting to burn Kyon into nothing, and that was his worst fear. Getting eaten by Noel's orange hands hurt more than anything he could've ever imagined. He turned back to Lloyd. "You haven't paid the piper."

"The piper is going to be a pancake if he doesn't shut his trap," Jay snapped.

"How should we kill him? Cut off his head?" Kai asked.

Were they really contemplating his death scene right in front of him?

Cole's eyes darkened, looking murderous. "I'd rather rip him apart slowly and make him watch me pull out his guts, then stuff them back in, before I cut out his tongue and made him eat it, all while two knives are driven into his wrists and ankles to keep him pinned down." The seriousness in Cole's tone made Kyon realize he wasn't kidding. His eyes were too intense for a joke.

"That's a, uh, nice picture," Jay commented. He gave Cole a look from the corner of his eye.

"He'll stitch it onto a throw pillow if you like," Noel added, casually holding out his fiery hands towards Kyon. The half-breed edged away.

Kyon swallowed, heart beating fast. _WORK, powers! _He thought, trying to distract the Ninja as he reeled for control of his absentee upper hand. "It's funny how you now pretend to care when all her life, you didn't." He didn't need to specify the 'her'; the whole reason they'd come here was for one 'her,' and no other.

Cole's bushy brows furrowed. "I don't need you telling me anything about my mistakes."

"It didn't seem like a mistake with the way you treated her earlier," said Kyon, swallowing. "You didn't even notice I had Maya in that house, and you still treated her like nothing—is that how it really works around your eyes?" He chuckled. "You're a pretty sucky brother. And trust me, I know a thing or two about them." His eyes fell darkly on Lloyd. The Green Ninja squirmed under the gaze.

The scythe's blade held his throat to the wall. If Kyon moved, his head would come right off. "You know _nothing _about me," he said lowly.

"I know enough to be able to tell that you couldn't care less about your family." Kyon challenged him with his eyes. "Think about it!" He desperately added when the scythe came closer. "I brought her here because with my Bizarro, she'd fit right in; you didn't honestly think that Seiko was happy being a good guy, did you? She's too negative to think that even _he"_—he nodded to the blonde Ninja in question—"is worth her time. He's tried to kiss her once and she couldn't even let herself do that! She'd have all five of you laid out before her, just in a light that wasn't so positive and helpful. We'd all be just like her, and she'd be happy." Kyon felt the blade dig into his skin. He squeezed shut his eyes. "I was technically _helping _her."

"She'd _never _join you." Cole's blade went in deeper. Kyon felt warmth spill down his neck.

"Oh yeah?" He tested the big bad Cole, licking his lips. "How would you know what she wanted? You were never there for her!"

Cole sliced the scythe across his throat, making Kyon gag and fall to the ground. Blood splurted out his wound. "You bastard," Cole whispered, holding the weapon over him, but even Kyon could see that he was feeling guilty underneath that mask of his. Holding the cut on his neck, Kyon looked up, laughing dryly. "You're all such fools," he said, warmth pouring over his fingers. His hand did nothing to cease blood flow, but pushing himself up so that he could lean against the wall, he continued to chuckle without air. "You've been under my control for so long that you would barely recognize the truth from what I wove for you."

Jay's nunchucks cracked against his ankle. Kyon cried out. "Quit with the riddles!" The two asymmetrical eyebrows moved when he spoke. "All you villains think you're being clever, giving us weird statements like that, but you actually are just making it more painful for you to die."

"Explain yourself before we hand you over to Cole and my brother," Kai threatened. "We're done playing games."

Kyon's laugh came over dry lips again. The blood surged so steadily now that it would only be a matter of time before he died. He kept a smile on his face, just for them. "I've been here all along…" he murmured. "Ever since the beginning, I've been here with you, always one…step…ahead."

…  
_(Kyon's POV for theatrics.)  
(NOTE: When he says "You," he's talking to the Ninja.)_

I was there when Eloquim decided he wanted to start stalking Lloyd, knowing that he'd get the right answers from a child as foolish as him. Eloquim told me to follow you along, walk in the shadows behind your every step that day. He gave me a map to hide in my belt and an objective to follow. You. I watched you walk into that shop, the woman's, Mystake's. I could feel your desire to fulfill your own destiny burning through your veins, red hot, bothersome. I knew that if I had any chance of winning over your ability, I would have to play a game with you.

I already hated you at that time. I did. I knew who you were and what you'd taken from me, and I was ready to reap my revenge. I saw you enter the shop, and from that purpose, I began controlling your mind. The conversation you had with Mystake was actually far different in real life than it was in your head. In your head, you saw her selling you a black widow that was deadly if it served a bite to any human being. On the outside, it was actually you asking her about the weather and leaving. You walked home with a spider, but there was actually no spider. You only _thought _there was one. When it "got out," it wasn't even there. It did not exist. It "bit you," and you "caught" Arachnaeus, but in truth, you did not. You only _thought _you had. That's why, when you left in a rush to go to the flying ship with your friends, your parents never understood what was wrong with you. When you ran back to Mystake begging for help, you heard her tell you there was nothing she could do, but in truth, she didn't even know what you were talking about_. I_ was the one you met in the shadows, and _I _was the one who gave you that map. _I _made the deal with you. I made Dareth believe what he saw was real, when you puked blood. I made him believe it. And it wasn't just you I was manipulating every day.

Zane saw that snake in the doorway of your boat, didn't he? That, too, was fake.

I manipulated you, too. Kai, Jay, Zane, and Cole were all deep into my wrath. That _storm _your ship was attacked by? That wasn't real. The ship only crashed because you left it unmanned while you thought there was a storm. Kai thought he was possessed, so he tossed Cole over the side of the boat. Cole, do you remember Samokai Village?

That place was fake, too. Sakura, Ellecia—they were all _fake. _

_I _was the one who fed you and mended your wounds. _I _made you better.

In the desert, Kai and Jay and Zane and your pretty little sister Nya, _I _made you all believe it was too hot out for Zane. It was actually not that hot out at all. A comfortable heat. I made all of you believe it was too hot. I made him think he was going insane. Do you remember when the Falcon was swirling in the sky over his head, and he thought it was there, but you didn't see it? It really _was _there. I made you think you _couldn't _see it. Zane was not insane at all. You treated him that way.

When Kai fought with Jay and you split, _I _made you two fight. Kai was killed, that night, by _me. _Then I faked there to be a fake Kai. I made all of you _and_ Eloquim believe that he was there, evil, when he was just plain dead.

Do you remember, the night that "Kai" made his choice to "join" us, he was supposed to get all his wishes, which were to make you guys be safe again? And all your problems suddenly just—poof? Disappeared? That was me stopping to control your mind of those things. I dropped the Arachnaeus, the insanity, the blistering heat. You weren't cured, Lloyd, because there was nothing to be cured _of. _You never had Arachnaeus to begin with.

Do you remember when you three fought the army of samurai outside of Samokai's Village? None of them but Cole were real, and I was just controlling Cole's mind to make him believe that he was under Samokai's power.

When Zane was killed, he was killed by a Taser. _I _held that Taser, not the Kai I made you think you saw. Eloquim was never there. Pythor was never there. Just you all fighting nonexistent samurai warriors—so, basically, you were fighting the air—and duking it out with Cole. Ever wonder why his mind-control wore off so fast when Zane died? It was because I stopped controlling him at that point.

Then, I stole Misako and controlled you to think that I was her. Then, I tricked Lloyd into thinking that Misako was really Kai, but Kai was really _me. _The mirage of the fire you all died in was a lie, too, but you already knew that.

The Temple of Forgotten Warriors was ridden with issue and consequence. All of that was true, happily in my name, except for the part where Kai was there, when he was not. That was me all along, up until Eloquim tried to kill me, after which I made him think he killed Kai. When you fell from the ceiling with Seiko wrapped in your arms, both of you spiraling back into the ground—you fell into a scapegoat of Traveler's Tea that I made, just for you two. That worked accordingly to my plan.

Remember the Elathan in the Elemental Realm you met? That man was the real Elathan, taking over the realm for power. He had nothing to do with what Eloquim was doing. I only mirage-d it to make it look like he was the one pretending to be Kai, but it was all me!

Maya was never really evil. You probably already figured that out, but she was desperate for Cole's attention, to say the least. I only _amplified _the war you two had.

Remember when lovely little Seiko went blind? That never happened.

I controlled the robots into being on my side.

Everything after that sort of dimmed on my behalf. I was busy riveting Danielle and creating Bizarro to even care about what Eloquim did to get himself killed.

Oh! Do you remember the wormholes? Of course you do, idiots. Yes, those, too, were fake. They did not manifest past just a crop-circle on the ground. Never deep. I made everyone—including my Bizarro—think that it was something much worse than it really was. They never…ever…EVER…destroyed…ANYTHING! I just wanted to give you problems, thas' all!

…

Kyon laughed at the horror on their expressions. Yes, it was quite shocking, wasn't it? To find that everything you've known—basically the whole reason you are here today—is a lie would be _excruciating. _How miserable. But then again, this was _hilarious. _

"Wanna know my favorite part?" Kyon found himself giggling like a thirteen year old girl. Everyone stared at him, dreading what might come with their faces all facey and faced, trying to get past all this. He leaned forward to face Lloyd, the bright blue eyes of disbelief that somehow made sense, and let his creepiest smile flow over his lips, inflating like a balloon. He tapped his own temple. "Remember that voice in your head?" He giggled again, falling over a little. The blood loss was starting to make him feel light headed. Lloyd's eyes widened. He looked at his hand, where his Eye tattoo was—but the tattoo actually didn't talk.

"No," he gasped. "No way. It can't be—no."

"I helped you a little, didn't I?" Drunkenly, Kyon slurred his words, making an inch between thumb and forefinger of his bloody hand. "Jus' you an' me, brother. Together forever." Kyon slumped over on the ground. His eyes closed.

Miserable.

…

"Ah, shit, c'mon!" Noel groaned loudly. He turned on Cole, on everyone's shocked face—what, they didn't see this coming?—to pretend to flick lava in their faces. "Are you SERIOUS? I was going to kill him, and you had to ruin it!"

Cole ignored him. All four of them looked like they'd just found out Santa Claus wasn't real. Noel put his hands on his hips at them. "So…it was all…fake?" Kai stuttered, eyes empty. They all looked like they could use alcohol.

"Everything wasn't real," Jay said. Dazed.

"We were chasing imaginary things," Cole breathed.

"He's been inside our heads…all along?" Lloyd drug his hands down his face. They all stared off into space.

Noel snapped his fingers. They were such— "Hel_lo? _Anyone listening? You guys just KILLED my ENTERTAINMENT!"

…

Maya towed Seiko down the hall by her hand, Yuki at their heels, Bokuyo in his arms. She kept her eyes open, but against the will of her doppelganger, moved quickly. "Let GO of me! I can't go!" Seiko objected. Maya had stolen her (with Wu's permission) the minute she slid underneath Noel, grabbed onto her older twin, and pulled her into the hallway, Yuki following. She made sure that they were close enough to the door in case something came. Maya stopped them and whirled on Seiko. She looked the scared, tear-drenched girl up and down. "Are you wearing anything under that?" Maya asked.

"No," Seiko said stonily. She was naturally suspicious—she knew nothing of the past she and Maya had. The less she knew, the better. Maya grumbled something about perverts and, after commanding loudly that Yuki turn around, grabbed the waistband of Seiko's robe. The other girl scoffed and ripped out of her grasp. "Gross! She yelled, whirling around. "No! I need to stay here for Lloyd!" she told Maya, running back for the door.

…

Wu looked to Danielle. Danielle looked to Wu. They exchanged such a solemn glance, a pirouette of a ballerina's twirl switching the somber looks on their faces. Wu had never been great friends with the daughter of the now-deceased Dr. Julien, but he'd never been exactly un-friends with her, either. Now, the tired, sorry look they gave each other was enough for a connection. Yes. They knew how it felt. They knew how it hurt. But they'd do it anyway for the people they loved.

…

Kai scrubbed his face. "Damn," he breathed. That didn't cover anything, but it was an expression of all he could think of. Wrapping his head around this was harder than it might seem, because he basically was just told everything he'd known was a lie. The thing that started this war hadn't even happened.

It was all in their heads.

It didn't make sense. And now, Kyon was dead.

_I just don't…I don't get it. _Kai pulled his hands from his face and looked at Lloyd. Lloyd was on the verge of what looked like passing out.

It was over.

And then, it wasn't.

"This sucks," Noel grumbled, turning away. "You guys are jerks." Typical little brother comment. Kai watched him go.

A spring of life—immediately, unseen and undetected from even the vampire—jolted off the ground, wrapping lively hands around the hilt of the discarded Shadow Key, missing its key purpose: the top. Kai couldn't see quick enough to prevent it to happen, but the second it did, time slowed: his heart started to thunder, and he reached forward for the undead body of Kyon, springing back to life with a weapon in arms. With the emptied top's claws wide, Kyon grabbed the shoulder of Noel, the King not being able to notice that he was being touched instances in the time it took Kyon to, against the screams of Kai, drive the clawed headpiece of the Shadow Key straight into Noel's back, through his ribs, and into his heart.

Kai shouted, and a second later, his sword was straight through Kyon's lower back to the hilt. He withdrew the blade and let Kyon, gasping, fall to the ground.

Noel was still standing, frowning and trying to look at the long staff hanging out his back over his skinny shoulder. One eyebrow raised, barely catching sight of what was still sticking out of him. Kai walked towards him, holding out his hands, but what did you do when this happened? Noel didn't seem to be dying—in fact, he didn't look bothered at all. "Is this supposed to hurt?" He asked casually, sounding to be asking if a child's tiny punches were supposed to make bruises on his leg. "Because it doesn't."

"Noel…" Kai's eyes began to water. _Why? You don't even know him!_

_But he's my little brother. _He stopped the works of water and reached again.

"Don't pull it out!" Sensei advised, walking briskly towards them. Dani came to his heels. Sensei looked unfortunate, stopping slowly at Kai's side, and looking at the normal, frontal part of Noel that wouldn't give way to what was actually happening. "If you do, it will take his heart out with it. That is the purpose of the staff."

Kai felt even emptier. Noel looked down at his chest. From the front, you couldn't see anything. From the back, though, you saw everything, mostly one central point of view: the end. He smirked. "Heart?" He asked, looking up. "What heart?"

"Noel…" Kai put his hands in his hair, trying to figure something out. If they took the staff out, Noel would die. If they left it in there…well, he didn't think that was going to be Noel's favorite option. The dark haired, green eyed boy smirked.

"What?" He asked, a hint of irritation eating him.

"You're gonna…"

Without listening, Noel looked back over his shoulder again. "It might be a little hard to bathe with this," he said, scratching his chin. "Finding a wife in the future might also be an issue, but I'm sure there are plenty of women out there who like guys with poles sticking out of their backs, right?" He gave a half-upturned smile to Kai, one that Kai knew he made all the time. Only this one was dead humor. Humor that only was trying to light the darkness. Kai felt his heart sink.

_He's trying not to show his pain. _Kai might not have known him for very long, but there was no doubt in his mind that Noel was his brother. Every part of him was a dead ringer for Kai: his face, his hair, his smile, his personality. Kai felt his heart swell with a sad note. He'd come up here to help his brother, Sensei had said. And now, look at him.

Noel scratched his chin again. "I'm also probably going to need custom-made shirts from now on," he said. He winked at Kai. "You know how it is, being the King of back-poles and all." Noel swallowed, and the hardness of it told enough of a story: it was starting to hurt.

"I'm so sorry," Kai whispered, stepping forward. "You came here to help, and now you're…"

"I'm what? Missing my opportunity for a rematch?" Noel dramatically sighed. "I hate backing down from a challenge. I also hate it when someone else kills my opponent." He lifted a finger and waved it disapprovingly at Cole. "I would not advise that in your future. Hey," Noel's sidetracked words moved back to his brother, "did I ever tell you I'm a Sagittarius?" He spoke to Kai, entertaining his disc-eyed brother with something other than the fact that when someone took out that staff, Noel would die. Kai's heart clenched sorrowfully. This was his fault. "Doesn't that sound neat? I sound like somebody noble and honorable. Like some warrior or something. 'The great Sagittarius rides off again for battle!' or some headline like that." Noel beamed at him with a goofy smile. The way real kids did: No strings attached. Sniffing, Kai weakly gave him one back. _Noel, _he thought. _You're really something, aren't you? _Who else could grin and joke on the brink of death, one pull away from becoming history? Besides Zane, that is.

"You're very brave yourself," Kai said honestly. "Comin' up here to take on a half-breed and coming back for more when he chickened out."

Noel snorted. "Sure. Me. Brave. Let's pretend."

Kai nodded slowly. His smile faded. "Let's pretend," he agreed softly. Noel stared in his eyes, and while Kai couldn't see any pain there, he knew that it was underneath somewhere, hiding so no one would see the truth. He watched Wu slowly walk around his backside while Kai told Noel a story—a personalized bedtime story, just for him. Noel's intense gaze never left his. "There once was a Sagittarius named Noel Smith, who ruled the lands by his bravery and honor to the people he protected," Kai tried to keep the catch out of his voice. Noel's eyes drunk this in like a four year old being told his first story, so Kai continued to keep seeing that look on his face. Happy. Content. Okay. "He conquered everyone who dared to stand up to him. He was the bravest boy anyone had ever met. And he got all the pretty girls." Sensei met Kai's eyes over Noel's shoulder. Kai's vision blurred. "And one day"—he said, taking a deep breath—"Noel the Sagittarius went into battle with five hundred men, and since he was so brave he didn't back out like everyone else."

"What happened to him?" Noel asked quietly. He sounded like a little kid, desperate to hear the end.

Kai smiled for him. Sensei met his eyes one last time, and Kai told him, "He won."

Noel smiled.

_Rip._

Noel's body slumped against the waiting Danielle, her arms ready for him. Kai's eyes pooled with liquid emotion, dragging down his cheeks, looking at the heart inside the small metal cage that the Shadow Key made. But the heart was nothing to it, and it easily fell out and onto the floor like it was nothing. Kai whimpered.

Kai bit his lips. _My fault—_

_Clap. Clap. Clap._

Everyone looked.

Lloyd? No. No, it wasn't.

Kyon's body was gone.

He walked towards them from the opposite side of the room, clapping and smiling thinly, pretending he cared. "Wonderful performance," Kyon said. The slit in his throat was gone. The hole in his shirt where Kai stabbed him was gone. "Truly heartfelt—I almost felt your pain. Almost." A white-toothed grin flashed over his face. "I'm impressed."

Kai grabbed his sword. He said nothing. He didn't need to. The others removed their own: scythe, nunchucks, and the newly added shurikens to the mix. This man had tricked them and killed Noel—and for no good reason. Kai's inner numbness screamed.

"Ooo, scary." Kyon waved his hands. "Somebody help! Ninja are after me with their play toys!" He laughed, pointing. "I got you good there, didn't I? You really thought I was dead. As if it would be so easy to take _me _out. If I've been controlling you all for so long, it would be a fat chance that you could just kill me like that." His fingers snapped. Kai stared. "But, on your defense, you all _are _idiots…Hm. I really don't know."

"However, I _do _know that this is where your prophecy ends, Ninja." Suddenly, Kyon had the Shadow Key in hand, free of Noel's heart. Kai noticed Sensei was staring at his hands in wonder.

Kyon twirled the staff. He opened his mouth for some other stupid thing to say, but that wasn't going to happen. Not yet.

The wall to their left exploded.

…

"LAND HO!"

From the debris, no one could see anything but dust and pieces of wall all over the place. It was a miracle that nobody important had been squished by anything. Coughing, spluttering, and knowing that Hephaestus had to be in the walls somewhere, Jay sat up, rubbing his head of all the pounding pain. He choked on the dust smoke screen that masked his vision.

"Alrighty, mateys, who's gonna get it now?" a female's voice called, sounding like a child's actor out of a play. Jay fanned the air in front of him so he could get a better view. He saw the slender body of someone walking across the piles of wall all over the place, boots scraping the sheetrock, towards the right of Jay. He rubbed his aching funny bone.

"Is there a reason why you speak in a pirate's accent?" Now, _that _one was familiar. The broad form of Rikku stepped into Jay's line of vision, but in a smoky fog.

Zane recognized him. "Rikku!" he happily chittered.

"Hello, my unseen brother."

Jay stood up and found Zane was close to him, grabbing his arm and happily tugging on it. "We can be smoke buddies," he said in a way that would be creepy if anyone else said it. But he was Zane, and, well, you just can't take Zane badly. Jay coughed, fist to mouth, and nodded a reply.

Jay hacked out two names. "K-Kai? Cole? Lloyd?"

"Yes!" moaned Kai from somewhere around him.

"Over here…" Cole groaned.

"Uhgaksmakjd."

Jay looked down, finding the kid seconds from getting Jay's foot stamped into his face, He bent down to help him up. "What happened?" Lloyd asked, hopefully not referencing the night before.

"Alrighty, mates! There's the exit! Take it now while it lasts!" Jay realized the girl was Ming. Rikku and Ming had come to save the day. But where was the horror-gasm of Kyon? Had he gotten squished to death, like Jay prayed he did?

_"Lloyd!" _

"Seiko?"

"Lloyd, where are you, damnit? You sound like you're in Asia for crying out loud."

"I'm coming for you!" Lloyd parted from Jay and Zane, his solid form disappearing in white clouds of dust. Not wise to wander off in a mine field full of pieces of debris, but, if that's your choice, then go ahead. He wasn't gonna go stop Lloyd.

Jay started feeling with his foot on the floor for the debris. Had Ming and Rikku set a bomb, or what? "Has anybody seen Damon?" Jay asked, realizing he hadn't seen him at all. Where did he go?

The back of Jay's neck prickled badly, and it wasn't because he hadn't shaved it. He froze.

_"Bye, bye, Ninja boy," _hissed Kyon in his ear. Jay only had time to turn around when a loud _clang _filled his ears, and ANOTHER surprise came to him one after another after another . When was reality going to stop bombing him with these things? Jay watched the shape of a round cooking pan, attached by a long handle, whack the dropping figure on the back of his head to keep him down. Jay opened his mouth.

"Ooo, lookie, Ed, I got him!"

"Oh, good job, hun! I'm so prouda you!"

"_Ma_?" Jay let go of Zane, and moving towards the two figures moving out from the dust, he touched his mother's comforting arm and found her close to him. "_Dad?"_

"Oo, Ed! Jay's here!" He pulled his mother close to him, burying his face in her shoulder. He felt his father wrap his arms around him, too, and they started laughing happily. Jay planted kisses on his mother's wrinkled cheek, covered in dust and tasting like _ew, _and though it was unfortunate that Noel was dead, Jay was so glad to see his own family alive. He held them both closely.

"How ya doin', son?" Ed's voice boasted with pride.

"Oh, we missed you so much," Edna told Jay. He laughed.

"Aw, man, I'm so glad you guys are okay!"

Jay held them tighter. He heard the soft black purr of Damon Garmadon's voice whistle past him: "_That's _what I was doing." _Thank you, _he thought, bringing them closer. _Thank you so much. _

…

Cole wiped soot off his face. That was seriously gross. He felt it sticking to his shirt and clotted in his hair. It coated his lungs, wouldn't leave with the eviction notice of a cough, and basically handicapped him with the eyesight, too, when he couldn't see past shadows. Shapes were all he saw, but in the hovering debris and powder, there was nothing else to see. He spat out pieces of wall. "Grody. Someone needs to call a cleanup crew."

He dusted off his arms, hearing his name being said. But not just by anyone.

Cole turned in the darkness and saw, staring hard through the fog, a matted, curly moustache with a smiling face. Cole's heart jumped. "Dad!" He cried, and jumped into his arms.

"Cole," he said, squeezing him. "Are you alright?"

"Of course I am, but—but Dad, are you?" Cole pulled back, sniffing the air. He tasted so much more than just dirt. "I can smell blood."

Lou touched his shoulders. "I had a little fight, but I'm okay now, son." Cole pulled him in again. At least _one _member of his family was safe. That is, until he had a sense that he needed to get his father out of here in the opening Ming and Rikku had created—fast. Or things would get really ugly from here on out. "Guys! Where are you?"

"Heeeerrre!" Sung choruses. He thought back to the meeting they had, planning, before they'd come here. What was that code again? It was some stupid thing Zane came up with…

"Tick, tock, polly-wock!" He called, and grabbed his father, moving for the way he sensed the exit was.

…

"Sensei," Kai threw the old man's arm over his shoulder, dragging him out from underneath the wall piece, "C'mon, buddy. Let's get you home." He helped him move along, limping, but still going. Sensei made noises of broken equipment.

…

Zane bent down and grabbed onto Noel's body, like Kai asked. He slung the poor boy over his shoulders—wow, Zane was strong!—and carried him in the same direction Kai's and Sensei's backs were going, moving happily along until he felt Rikku surround him. "Let me help," he offered, and like a good brother, helped his brother help out a friend. Or two.

…

Kyon watched her move through the darkness in her long borrowed-out robe, trying to find Lloyd.

His predatory eyes picked up easier on the new prosthetic air than the others did, making it a better advantage to see her shifting through the ash, feet touching the ground dimply, shielding her eyes to look for Lloyd. But the "Lloyd" she was about to find had _nothing _about her real friend about him. Kyon shifted through the ashes to find her. "Seiko," he breathed. She turned at the sound of his Lloyd-mocking voice.

"Hey," she sounded relieved. She reached for him. "Do you think that knocked Kyon out?" She reached for his hand. Kyon was glad she could barely see him. He held her hand and watched it between them.

"Oh, I'm sure he's a little confused," Kyon said.

"Probably. He's too stupid to understand what ashes are."

Kyon reached behind him for the Shadow Key, simultaneously dissing himself. "Oh, yeah. Total idiot."

_If it is the Shadow Key you want to harness, you must find the Heart of Darkness. _

Kyon pulled out the Shadow Key. He lost all traces of Lloyd's voice in him. "You're mine," he purred, hearing the Ninja shouting for one another behind him, and took the practiced Shadow Key, already drenched in the blood of the King. She whispered his real name in fear. He could feel the anticipation, much like finding the staff, building up inside of his stomach, a bar ready to snap in half with the weight. This was what he had been getting ready for. This was it. His ticket to victory. He wasted no time yanking Seiko to him, her eyes confused, and shoving the bloodied claws of the Shadow Key's jewelholder straight into her chest. Eyes foggy and wide, the whites were visible quickly, mouth expanding into an _O. _She didn't know words to form. Seiko gave a strangled gasp, her mouth chattering. Her eyes, wide and afraid, started to cry. Kyon grinned and twisted the handle of the Shadow Key, power surging into his hand, his mouth _frothing _for this. He yanked the much-deserved key out of her chest and let her corpse fall along the wreckage.

"YES!" Kyon cried, raising the Shadow Key high overhead. He had the Heart of Darkness, he had the Yin's heart—he was unstoppable! He had done it! He had—

_Squish. _

Something wet and squishy and definitely solid fell on him. Kyon reached up and touched his damp hair. What was that? The ground had to be home to it—there it was, an oval-shaped organ, dark and red in his feet's company. Kyon looked down at the heart. Where did that come from? Then: _Oh, no._

Kyon pulled down his staff and looked into the claws. Empty.

The Key rejected that heart as the Heart of Darkness.

_NO! NO! _Once again, Kyon was screwed over by his ancestors. A large howl of animalistic frustration deigned him from the place of glory to the rockiest bottomless pit. Once more, Kyon was OUTTAKEN BY HIS ANCESTORS. He had done everything he was supposed to for this one moment—he'd seduced the Yin, taken her to him, brought her as his woman—and _her heart didn't work in his Key? _There was no one in the world whose heart was as dark as hers. NO ONE. How could it REJECT its mate?!

Kyon bared his teeth at her body, crumpled and dead. He stared hard at her, trying to figure out what this could mean for hi—

NO. Kyon's jaw dropped. NO! NO NO NO NO NO** NOOOOO!**

He'd not been dooped by his ancestors—_he'd let himself be outsmarted by the Ninja! _

Kyon lifted his key high above his head, swinging it madly through the air. "GRAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" His shout was angrier than anything anyone ever could've heard before. He was _pissed. Off. _And he was going to strike his revenge. One way, or another.

…

"Seiko, are you alright?" Yuki asked, trying to keep her pace up with his as they made for the exit. Seiko kept up, but she seemed elsewhere, her face impassive. The hallway maze was almost over, so they could get to the main hallway and out the portal, but first, they had to _find _that hallway. And Lloyd, waiting for her on the other side.

Seiko's heard drummed against her chest and in the wrist Yuki kept a firm grip on. He detected no threats yet from the halls, but he had a sense they'd run into something soon.

"Maya…" Seiko whispered. She glanced down at the clothes she'd swapped with the other girl to give Kyon something to distract upon. The comfortable clothes for just that: Consolation.

"Yes, Maya," Yuki nodded. "We know."

"She's going to die."

"I know."

"For me."

"Yes." Yuki looked down a hall and moved quicker.

"Why? She _hates _me."

"There is no real line between hate and love. Both are passionate."

"What, so you're saying all the insults were out of love?" Seiko shook her head. "That doesn't make sense."

"Love doesn't have to," Yuki told her, and kept running.

…

When Seiko and Yuki with the baby emerged out the hall, Lloyd couldn't have been more relieved. He was starting to think Yuki had forgotten his way, but, seeing her come out, looking pale and breathing too hard, all he could do was crush her against him and beg her to move down the hallway. This hall, he told her twice, is the way out. The end down there is how they escaped. Seiko merely accepted that through a fuzz and kept her arms clasped around Bokuyo, following the many people she saw in front of her. Kai, helping the limping Sensei forward. Ming and Rikku helping each other carry Noel's body. Zane trotting at their side. Jay helping his parents move along, and Cole keeping his own stumbling father in check. Yuki moving forward with Damon, throwing glances back at Seiko.

Hearing things was just like being under water. Fuzzy. Couldn't get it. Didn't get it. So much was happening all at once—no longer unusual for the Ninja—but difficult to grasp anyway. He walked quicker, taking Seiko with the group exodus, when the sound of someone calling them made them all look back.

"TAKE HER WITH YOU!" Zane's Bizarro ran down the hallway after them, pulling in tow the faun girl that Lloyd had come across earlier. She was having a hard time keeping up with him. She sneezed several times. Damon raised an eyebrow when the Bizarro and faun reached them. She panted with a tiny pink tongue dangling out her lips.

"Why?" snapped Damon.

"She can't stay here. Please—take her with—" the Bizarro begged. "She doesn't deserve to die here. She needs to see the real world again. Seriously. Take her! Please!"

Lloyd looked at the faun girl. She me this eyes, blinked. She didn't look dangerous to him. He nudged Seiko's head, then said to the girl, "C'mon. Hurry, we gotta go!"

"Thank you," breathed the Bizarro, doubling over. "Thanks so much."

The faun mewled a goodbye, sorta like a kitten. He waved at her while she followed Yuki (who kept throwing glances at _her, _attempting figuring out what she was) and as Sensei and Kai jumped into the portal, Cole and Lou taking next, the Bizarro called after them, "Her name is Jeriminé!"

Jeriminé mewled again at the sound of her name, bleating in a kitten voice, and Yuki urged her into the portal after Ed, Edna, and Jay. Ming, Rikku, Zane, and Yuki followed after her; it left Damon to quickly jump inside with a backward glance at Lloyd and Seiko. Watching a fire start to erupt back in the Heart, Lloyd wrapped his arms around her tightly, knowing time couldn't waste anymore with what was shortly to come, and asked, "You ready?"

Seiko swallowed. He kissed her head. "Close your eyes," he told her, and jumped inside.

And not a moment too soon.

…

"You lied to me."

Kyon stared, huffing, at the Shadow Key. He didn't need to turn to his mother to know it was her. "You killed me. We're not even yet." He failed. He had failed to complete his task with a stupid group of Ninja and the curse of a vampire doppelganger pretending to be the ACTUAL one he needed besting him.

Danielle stood at his side, bloodied and ruined by being knocked over by the remainders of the wall. Her hand was bent up, like he was waving to somebody, but it was not broken arm dysfunction and it was not unnatural, but by will. Something in her palm was followed by a long chord dangling from it…connected to something on her chest. Many rows of cylinders, taped to her chest, made him suck in his breath. _Martyr, _he thought. He glared at her. Danielle stared calmly back. "Yes," she told him softly, "I did. And here is me about to do it again." Danielle clicked the button in her hand. "This is for Jace, you coward."

And everything exploded into an array of searing hot, orange and red and blue explosions—no words could describe being incinerated then disintegrated by a bomb strapped to your mother's chest and her sole intent in life to murder her son over, and over, and over again.


	83. Chapter 83

**Guys, this is the last chapter of Book 4 before the epilogue. :( I am seriously close to crying. This book has been great, and you guys have been freakin' amazing, and I want to virtually give all you readers out there huge hugs for sticking with my senseless Ninja and character torturing. Thank you all so much for being here with me, and though this ending (Lloyd was even so smart he named it "the ending" :O he should get a cookie) may not be what you wanted, the epilogue is soon to come. I'm trying to finish before 1st day of school on Tuesday.**

**Thank you. Enjoy the chapter, be happy with what you have, and go have an awesome day/night. Please.**

* * *

**CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE:  
**The Ending  
_~Yang_

Two mugs of warm tea in my hands, one labeled by the "BEST DAD EVER" emblem, the astrological meaning of things when you're a four year old _assuming_ that there's only one dad in the world, when actually every kid says that in their lifetime, then approximately restates the opposite in their teenage years. My bare feet padded across the shag carpet in the hallway that the droids had put _over _the real carpet to cover up the blood stains from what happened earlier today with Bokuyo, something I don't like to think about when I'm trying to carry chamomile down the hallway peacefully, at least until they can get a carpet stain cleaner. Much like my bathroom's mess, the unseen droids of the monastery had cleaned every one of the householdly problems before we got home, using bottles of _Mr. Clean _and towels to assure that I wouldn't slip and die on so much as a droplet. My eyes find her bedroom door wide open. I stand in the doorway watching her for a second. She's sitting on her bed, legs crossed, in one of Cole's baggy sweatshirts, her hair tucked behind her ears, looking down at single white piece of printer paper in her lap, scrubbing the place underneath her eyes every two seconds so a tear won't drop and smear the ink. In the corner of the room where the droids put it, a baby's cradle carries the sleeping child that she told me she named Bokuyo Taizo Mitsuhide, fast into dreams after all the excitement he'd had. He silently snores with the teddy bear I had passed, arguably _donated,_ on from my own personal inventory, Falafel, curled into the bed beside him. I can't see him from the doorway, but I hear him, and that's enough for me.

When we got home, she'd been so worried that he had Shaken Baby Syndrome from all the running that we'd done that she'd practically broken into tears, tears I was sure came from all the stress of the evening. Yuki had reassured her after two different checkups that her baby was perfectly fine, but I secretly think she's worried about brain damage.

I lift my knuckles and rap them gently against the doorframe. Her head snaps up to see me, not exactly startled, but more of a tired glaze in her eyes. She's exhausted. I can see it, but I know she's too scared to fall asleep, afraid of what will happen if her nightmares come creeping into her brain, and what—or _who—_she'll see there. I step inside without saying anything and stretch out the mug that _doesn't _say anything about misleading fatherdom to save her from the embarrassment, and instead give her the one with the bird on it. She smiles at me tiredly and raises it to her lips. I sink down on the bed beside her, the mattress creaking underneath me in protest—I thought these beds were brand new—while I settled myself into the space she didn't inhabit, putting only eight inches between us. For once, she doesn't say anything about me being too close, and just takes another swallow of tea.

Coming out of the portal earlier today, we'd all fallen into the same backyard we'd entered from, plummeting down onto hard soil. Bokuyo had started to cry again. I'd eaten a face full of dirt, and I'd found myself face-to-knee with the faun named Jeriminé that had only stared at me dumbly, nothing like the way Bambi should look. She looks, more say, of someone who just had someone take their picture on the fly, the flash making their eyes hurt and brain become stunned for a short period of time that lasts forever. Everyone else had been groaning, but they were alive, and that was what mattered. Up until we saw the old lady gardening in the same backyard we were in, which couldn't have looked too good: a bunch of kids, a faun, and some robots, all dirty with soot and grime, falling out of the middle of the air into her backyard and crushing some of the plants she'd worked so hard on. She looked to need a ride to the hospital after staring at us for about four minutes in shock, handheld rake and mini shovel frozen mid-poise to put the next Petunia to bed. At that point, Cole had sighed, grabbed his wallet out of his pocket, and asked her how much she wanted for keeping the secret and not telling anyone about what she'd seen, since he was too tired to be able to Compel anyone a locked memory. The grandma had ended up taking thirty, but before we left, I paid her an extra ten just to make sure she _kept _her mouth shut and gave no consideration to blowing our cover.

With something Ming had found inside of Danielle's locked cabinet of wonders, she closed the portal with a bag of mystery thrown inside of it—she told me it was an offering to the god or goddess who allowed Danielle to put the portal there. Sure enough, when I'd tried to put my hand through, there was nothing there but air.

We'd all come back to the monastery slowly, dragging. Since the robots were blessed not to be tired, they'd each driven us fatigued, probably-not-fit-for-the-road Ninjas in each of the vehicles we'd come in. (Minus Sensei, whose leg was dislocated.) I hadn't considered the idea of the Falcon to have survived that until I saw him flying overhead next to the flyer, and I was actually grateful to see him.

But that didn't put aside all the people we _had _lost in the fight today, the noble souls that gave themselves for us, just to keep us alive. Each of them had seen something in five amiably abnormally skilled teenage boys, seeing enough of what they saw to say that they knew letting us live would be the greatest idea ever, because I can't tell you how many other people have died just because of or _for _us. We might be Ninjago's "heroes," but in our wake we leave a trail of dead bodies that keeps adding up, a trail of the _real _heroes who would give anything—ultimately, their lives—to keep us alive. I don't see what everyone else sees in us—I mean, we are what I said: rowdy teenage guys with abilities to mold the elements to our fitting, but people seem to think they know the greater good of Ninjago by letting themselves die for us. And I am by no way dissing out on them and telling them what they did was for nothing. There isn't _anything _(in a positive perspective)in this world that is done for nothing. Everything that happens has a reason behind it. All these people we've lost—Rufus, Dareth, Julien, and now Maya, Danielle, Jace, and even the Bizarro Zane—know we have the potential to save Ninjago. People that we didn't think were _good _thought we could do it.

But lately, I haven't been believing in that.

I already explained to you why I don't believe it. I can't seem to think that with the way the five of us have drifted apart, we would ever be able to protect Ninjago righteously the way we used to. Even tonight, defeating Kaos at its worst had not even been _us_. It had been the people who _believed _in us. Sure, it was our plan, but we hadn't even fought. It was everybody else who did the dirty work, who stepped in front of the bullet again, so we could cower and wait for the storm to blow over when that was done. Our insufferability was starting to tack on a lot more names to the list of people who had already died in our shame than I was comfortable with.

And how many more people were we willing to let sacrifice themselves for us until we said "_enough_?"

That very question had kept me and the other four quiet and stretched out on the ride home and the trek up the steps, even inside the doors. Yuki had gone to help Rikku and Ming repair Sensei's broken leg, and Zane, still not yet having unlocked his memories, didn't know what to do with himself when Cole, Kai, and Jay had just left him behind, too somber and tired for anything else. Nya had used her own intuition that, as we came in quiet instead of celebrating, something bad had happened, but she wasn't going to ask yet. Instead, she just followed them up to their rooms quietly. The faun we didn't know what to do with ended up being Zane's playmate for the afternoon while he taught her how to play checkers in the living room I couldn't visit. An unknown droid made leftovers for dinner, but nobody but the faun ate much. The faun who had a hard time speaking proper Ninjean, mind you. "Fork" became "Fark." And lemme tell you, she really used that _fark_ as a shovel to bury dead bodies with rather than an eating utensil, with the way she crammed food in her mouth. Kaos had to have starved her so badly that the buttons of her dress nearly popped off when she was full.

Nobody ever saw anything of Maru, Daijiro, or Koemi again. Rikku told me he'd dismissed Koemi from her _Shinobi_ training, as all of her other classmates were gone, and he'd told me she'd happily obeyed that new rule. I wasn't going to mind. None of them had particularly struck me as interesting people anyway.

Nightfall came, and though I'd wanted to talk to Kai a little before I went to bed, he retreated without saying anything to anyone. I supposed I'd have the time to discuss with him certain matters by the afternoon we all woke in tomorrow. I never kept track of where Mom and Dad went, but I know Ed, Edna, and Lou were enjoying their time together in the living room with Jay and Nya, plus Zane and Jeriminé. I only passed Cole in the hallway once, and he'd been sweaty from working out. I hadn't seen him since then.

My only option left was Seiko, and I knew that she needed some venting time for what had occurred with her today—every girl's worst nightmares happening to her in just one day, her whole life quickly happening in just a few hours—even if she claimed that she didn't want to talk. She needed a shoulder to lean on.

We drink our tea in silence. The room is cold, which explains her baggy sweatshirt and plaid pajama pants, but I can't help shivering with the cool air wrapping around my body, reminding me of everything that I've gone through today. It's no blessing.

Seiko fingers the paper in her hands. In black ink, I see somebody's messy hand writing in a letter I can't read without my stupid glasses and frown upon their inability to stay where I have put them before. I take a quiet drink of my tea, set it down on the table at the side of her bed, and reach towards her, softly tucking one of those extra strands of black hair back behind her ear, showing me her full face. Since she's aged, Seiko doesn't look like the girl I had known to be vicious and scary, mean and rude, cutting and repelling of human association by the tiny quads it came in. She looks older, wiser, smarter, and a lot more watchful of her silver tongue. I realize that both of us, against our wills, have been forced to grow in a matter of seconds what should naturally take years to process and develop. We have missed out on mistakes we should learn from, things we get in trouble for, experiences that we live to retell to our friends, and opportunities that we could've had, being the normal people we were. I don't see in her eyes the snippy girl she had been. I see a fully grown woman, stuck in the body of an eighteen year old, by experience. She no longer declines my attention, but does not accept it, either. I can only hope that what little I do give her for fear of having her turn on me and punch me in the face is enough to keep her in the know that she's loved. I once read somewhere that victims of rape seem to think that they aren't because of what situation they were stuck in. Granted, Seiko felt that way before Kyon came along, but I really don't think it made her feel any better having him worsen that feeling.

I tentatively reached out and kissed her exposed temple, my lips warm against her chilly skin. Seiko doesn't react to this, either. I don't push it, and rub small circles in her back with the palm of my hand, trying to warm her up. "What're you reading?" I asked softly.

Seiko sighs. She lets go of the paper she has been clutching as her last lifeline for the time that I've been in here, to pass me her half-full cup and stretch out her muscles, taut from intensely focused muscle strain. I set it aside by mine. Turning back to her, I see her lean back against the pillows beside me, resting it on her stomach and staring at the ceiling. I can't see any emotion in her eyes.

"It's a letter," she tells me, "that Maya wrote for me before you left."

"Oh?" I hadn't known Maya had snuck away to write it for her. I lean back against her pillows, propping myself up on my elbow, and look at her. She looks so tired. Been reading that note for too long, I guess. "Is it too much to ask what she wrote about?"

Seiko looks at the ceiling. Without her bangs hiding her eyes, I can see all of her, and I feel awful for knowing what she's been through. She takes a deep breath, lets it out through rounded cheeks, and holds up the note for me to read myself, but I sheepishly have to tell her I can't. She stares at my "three heads" in shock. "I didn't know Twinkies had glasses," she said, smiling faintly. No matter how much older she's gotten, there is no amount of time that could ever put a shying death to the _Hostess _dessert cake that was resurrected from the dead. She absentmindedly takes the string of my sweatshirt and wraps it around her finger. "Four-eyed Twinkies McSnickerdoodles."

I roll my eyes. "Call me that. I dare you." I hate being called Twinkies, let alone Twinkies McSnickerdoodles. If she tacked on the part about having four eyes, there would be no faith coming from my part into the system of how her nickname-assigning went. I'd have to start a picket line in my own salvation. Instead of giving me a reason to believe she'd call me it anyway, she lifted the paper to her face, surprisingly starting to read the letter aloud to me. I didn't expect that, but listened.

_Dear Seiko,  
You know me as the spiteful, hateful vampire who hates looking at your guts, who would rather insult you during her free time than use it to do productive stuff. That's my fault for making you believe that part of me was what you needed to see in order for you to be safe. I've never been able to look at you and accept that you've grown up to be who you are today, not that little girl that you were when I first met you. _

_ That probably throws your loop off the rocker. That, too, is my fault. You don't remember any of those days when we were younger, when you called me your best friend and I called you my little girl, when we spent all the time we could together. I Compelled you to forget when there was danger amid and I didn't want you to get sucked into any of it. I thought it would be better if you stayed as far away from the super-unnatural world that I've already taken under my wing. As for our earlier meeting and the cold hatred I treated you in—that was to make sure that you stayed away from me. I thought that if I used that technique on you, you'd be able to live the rest of your life under my watchful eye from a distance, until your heart stopped beating._

_ But now, I guess, there's been a sudden change of plans. Suddenly, it's not that simple anymore. Suddenly, it's everything about you in danger, and my only objective is to make sure that you get out of Kaos's greedy grip alive. And now, all the things I've ever wanted to tell you are suddenly being pushed at me all too fast—I would've liked to have said it in a more convenient time, and to your face, rather than writing you a quick letter before I ride off to my death. But at least I'm sayin' it. _

_ I know that hearing this from me freaks you out. It's weird. You don't get it. I understand that. But I want you to know that all your life, I've been there for you, even when you haven't seen me looking over your shoulder, even when it hasn't looked like I'm being your guardian angel—I've always been there, and I've always loved you. I have always, always, always, and even in my death, I will always, always, always. I want you to know that even in all the darkness and pain you felt, you were always loved by someone who understood exactly what it was like to be just the way you are. And you are the best you _now_, and I don't ever want to see you change that for no boy, or I'll rise back from the dead and haunt your ass until ya fix it. Hear me? HAUNT. _

_ I wish you a life of eternal happiness. I hope you get everything that you've ever wanted out of life one day—things I'd give you if I were still with you. I love you, my little blackbird. Always._

_ Forever,  
Mitsuko Maya_

Seiko was crying by the time she was done reading it, and I felt the weight of seeing those experiences Maya shared with Seiko heavily sit down on me. "I just never knew," she said, her voice logged with tears. She set aside the letter and drug her hands under her eyes, releasing them. Unknowing of how exactly to offer my consolation, I handed her the mug of tea with the bird on it, watching her take a thankful sip of it. I put it back when she was done.

"You need some rest," I said wisely. "It's been a long day."

Seiko sighed. "I want to, but…" She settled herself back onto the bed, comforting herself with it, but still managed to look unsteady on a bed this big and fluffy. I waited for her reason. "I just don't want to fall asleep and…"

"Nightmares?"

She half shrugged. Her exhaustion was making _me _miserable, and I inceptively reached closer, tugging at the bed sheets underneath her. Seiko rolled her eyes. "I can tuck myself in, Twinks," she said, a little harshly. I brushed it off.

"I was gesturing that you should go to bed."

Seiko looked hesitant again. I would expect that from someone who'd gone through her issues this evening. Seeing the darkness outside calling for a deep sleep, I bargained for her and I to strike a deal that would keep her to bed. I knew that if I left now, she'd keep her eyes open with the light on all night. "I'll stay here until you fall asleep," I said, thinking it wouldn't be too long with her tire. "Make sure that the monsters in your closet stay there and everything."

Seiko didn't laugh. That one _was _kinda dry. After a lot of coaxing, I finally got her to at least go under the covers, and promised I wouldn't stare at her in her sleep. It didn't take long for Seiko's eyelids to drift shut, her breathing becoming steady and peaceful, and all the nightmares I could keep away stayed away. But, becoming my own tired zombie independently, I took our mugs out of the room in my wake so there wouldn't be a mess to clean up later, softly shut the door, and after returning the dishes to the kitchen downstairs, changed into my own pajamas and crawled into bed. I'd already taken a shower that evening, so yet another thing on my to-do list was over with. I think the second I hit the sheets I was out-cold. Dreamless sleep wafted through my brain, keeping me far enough under the anesthesia that I could sleep for another seventeen hours.

Until at somewhere around one in the morning, I felt a hand roughly grab my arm and yank me towards the edge of the bed. I stirred awake out of a heavy fog, my room black all for the rectangle of light that shown gently from my open bedroom door, omen to the little devil that had wandered in. Seiko grabbed me by the wrists and dragged me back to her bedroom shamelessly, taking me from my own nice, comfortable, _warm_ environment to take me back into her seriously cold bedroom, throw me down and keep me there. I had a hard time keeping my eyes open, but once I knew she was asleep, I left her again. It took difficulty to get my bed back to being as warm as it had been before she'd interrupted my sound sleep.

Yet again, near three in the morning, she destroyed my peace by doing the same thing. I regretted making the dimple offer to stay with her until sleep found peace with her, and was again cast to the edge of the bed where I tucked my arms behind my head and tried to keep my eyes as open as they'd stay. But this time, Seiko latched herself onto me like a friggin' monkey, tightly wrapping both arms around my waist, so she'd automatically know if I tried to leave again. Her head stayed firmly on my chest. After a while, she was generous enough to let me have some of her blankets and even forced me to move closer to the middle of the bed so we both didn't fall off, and I guess I just sort of fell asleep that way afterwards, my arms placed behind my head, my chest a pillow for Seiko's cheek, and my dreamless sleep seemingly even more deep than before. Bokuyo didn't bug us in our sleep, but a couple of times I swear I heard Rie wailing her fool head off, and Nya would have to take her into the hallway and walk up and down it to try and get her to calm down. I eventually heard what I think was Cole's voice mixed in with that.

She kept her arms around me all night, face eventually tucking into my side rather than my chest, and more than once that chilly, chilly night of manifest, I heard her murmuring my name in her sleep.

* * *

**I wish ****_I _****had a Lloyd to sleep with when I went through that. But I don't normally envy, so. **


	84. Epilogue

**SCENE BETWEEN DANI AND LLOYD BY 1dninjagolloyd for the NfaN contest. Thanks, dal! :)**

**SCENE BETWEEN JAY AND NYA WRITTEN BY Iheartninjago2010, edited my me to fit situation. Thank you, dear! **

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**EPILOGUE:  
**The Departed

_Yang_  
We didn't have very many bodies to bury, but the headstones were done in a couple of days, and each of them was designed just for the name printed over their quiet granite and marble, polished just out of the shop owner's pocket. The morning we chose, a Thursday, came with quiet silence and very little talk to disrupt the soft crowing of the morning birds, sadly singing their songs just above our heads in the leaveless trees arched over the burial ground of the cemetery, where more than few laid to rest six feet under every visible and sunken gravestone, even the ones that had no name. Chill, dew, and frost all gathered along the bladed grass mowed to a nub point of trite precision by the programmed blades of a lawnmower, freshly drug over the two fresh patches of dirt that had yet to grow over with new soil's greens. It was colder outside today than I'd ever known it to be in Ninjago, even in the middle of the frozen sod in Birchwood, and I think maybe that's because of all the bad things that were still hanging around in the air, tainting our lungs with black tar that made it harder to breathe when we shed our tears. Grief kept my shoulders low and my ears down, and all I could do was take deep breaths to make the sorrow stay down for a little while longer. At least until I was alone.

The six headstones stretched out in front of us had no enlarged family plot to belong to, but I had, after looking through the empty lots, found one very close to someone we knew, once upon a time, so we bought one huge gathering for all of them next to it, a place where they could all be remembered in honor and bravery for the courage they had given to us. Only two of those headstones had a body to be put underneath his stony, shiny black surface with silver and gold names scratched into their surfaces, glossy and perfect for the many imperfections that came with death. They were upturned with black dirt that was already filled over the expensive caskets bought in their integrity, the boxes of satin and darkness lowered into the six-foot hole and petals of roses thrown over the top before the dirt fell in after them, covering the beauty eternally in the soil along with the casket of bones. The straight line of headstones before me added a head count to even those people I didn't have the bodies for, but wished I had so they may be buried properly, making me feel guiltier every time I looked at the perfectly aligned grass and knew there was no one underneath. Nothing but a memory and a name kept the spirit of that person living on. My throat closed.

We didn't have a priest to tell them goodbye for us. We all were trying to do that on our own telepathically, using pictures and memories to guide the spirit of our goodbyes over the words we could've said, but never would've covered the gratitude we felt.

Knelt, head bent, Zane's knees barely supported his weight on the gravestone flanking the left of all the others, a morning mist creeping over the groundskeep at our feet. The legs of his black suit were caked with the dirt of the fresh soil he sat upon, a single pink rose twisted back and forth in his fingers for the loss of who he couldn't look at in the blocky letters of his name. Rikku sat on the ground beside him with Ming's gentle hands on the straight shoulders of his own suit jacket, her eyes wet with the same tears both the boys in her life didn't shed, and in forlornity, they all stared down. Standing above him, Ming kept the bare legs under her short black dress pressed to Rikku's cheek, where he leaned against her for support, trying to suppress whatever he was feeling inside—something similar to what was inside of me. Zane didn't take any consolement from anyone. He stared at the earth, barren and dirty underneath him, and didn't make a sound.

Yuki had managed to find out where Danielle had buried Dr. Julien, and with the help of a couple of droids, uncovered his crudely-suppressed remains, and put him in the golden casket that Dr. Julien had once padded neatly with Sensei Wu's robot, golden and shining and beautiful. Now, he was underneath the soil again, but this time, he was remembered. Not thrown into a mass grave, but now loved in a place filled with others. Julien's full name was emblazoned across the crest of his headstone, a picture of him implanted into the marble using the shape of an oval, smiling at the camera, as on either side he was bordered by his two daughters, both looking at least fourteen, happier than I had ever known them. Danielle's smile was golden, but Carolyne's smile was broad. They both looked a lot like him.

On his left side, the family plot we'd found of someone we knew carried the name "JULIENS" in its crest also. Where the real body of the very first ever Carolyne Juliens was buried had been there for many years before she was finally joined, eternally forever, by her father. Zane had laid a rose over her meager headstone in comparison to all the other ones at her side and had almost started to break down at that point, but proudly he held it together, swallowing his anguish. I don't know if he remembers her or not.

On Julien's other side, Danielle Juliens-Teufel was rested, her headstone followed through with a patch of fresh grass—she wasn't there. This was the one I stood in front of, trying to keep it together. She didn't have a picture on her headstone.

I crouched down to her, reaching out my hand and setting down my own rose upon the grave site, pressing a flat palm to the frosty grass. Seiko had told me everything that Kyon had told her about who I really was—that I was actually the son of Lord Garmadon and Misako, just stuck in a dead kid's body. That, after even knowing that I was Danielle's son, I'd continued to believe I was still tied to Damon and Misako, Mom and Dad, in ways that couldn't be broken by whoever I might've belonged to. I knew the truth now. But that still didn't stop me from thinking that I was tied to Danielle in ways I never would've imagined possible. We didn't have the relationship I'd wanted to build for us, the ties that I had wanted so badly to trick myself with and keep her and I on some level—she had raised me for a portion of my life that I only barely remembered because those were Kyon's memories of being with Danielle, and mine only began after she was dead. Last night, as much as I had wanted to believe that my inability to dream was true, there _had _been dreams—dreams that were sly and I only remembered vaguely. Dreams that made me think about Dani, and what we could've had.

_~  
Lloyd sat down in the wooden chair as Danielle pulled out another, her purple-painted fingernails, showing no blemishes, curled around the chipped bar on the back of the seat. "Lloyd, I've decided today that we should have some- well, bonding time." Lloyd furrowed his eyebrows, quizzical on what kind of 'bonding time' she was referring to._

_"Lloyd, um, I was thinking- well, we could- um, go somewhere?" Danielle stuttered. Lloyd could tell that she was trying to act like a responsible parent to make a good impression on him to make him more comfortable, but so far she was just making him more uneasy as he shifted in his seat, eyes down. "Now, I know I've been gone a long time-"_

_"You were dead, yeah yeah." Lloyd's voice showed a sudden mood swing, that was to be expected at Lloyd's current mid-teen age. _

_"No, Lloyd, I was doing what was best for you."_

_"We already went through this before, Danielle." Lloyd said, his voice full of venom._

_"Please, Lloyd, at least call me Dani." Danielle said calmly._

_Lloyd stared at her, placing a stray golden lock of hair behind his ears. "Alright, Dani." He said, his voice softening a little._

_"Lloyd, I know we went through the whole story of why I didn't look for you before. So we don't need to talk about it now." Danielle enforced, looking into Lloyd's blue eyes as if an attempt to intimidate him. It didn't seem to work. His eyes remained hard and annoyed._

_"Well, I think we should go to the park for a picnic." Danielle said joyfully, clapping her hands together. Rolling his eyes, Lloyd rises up from the chair and pushed it back into the table. _

_"When will we go?" He asked Dani, looking around for an escape route. _

_"After you make sandwiches, dal." Dani smiled, getting out jelly, butter and bread. He spread each layer on as Dani watched him intently. He wasn't sure what he should do, shoot lightning out of his hands or something?_

_He was so focused on watching Dani that he didn't see where the butter knife was going. He winced in pain and the knife cut the skin off. "Ow!" He exclaimed, shoving him finger in his mouth. Blood filled his taste buds as he spat the blood out and grabbed a tissue, applying pressure to the wound. He sighed in content as the pain calmed._

_"Lloyd, are you okay?" Dani asked from the other side of the kitchen. She'd been watching the whole thing, and now she was asking a question she would ask from being in the separated room next door._

_"No." Lloyd stated as he showed the wound to Dani. Blood seeped through the skin, a big slice made in the side of his finger. _

_"Wait here." Dani said, as she hurried off to the second-floor bathroom. Lloyd almost laughed at her trying to be 'nice' to him. She wasn't just healing the wound with magic: she was getting a band-aid._

_She came back with a small pale band-aid. Peeling off both sides, she delicately placed the band-aid over the wound. Lloyd raised one eyebrow at her and frowned. He soon found that frown merging into a smile as he looked into her eyes and wrapped his arms around her. "I missed you." Dani whispered. _

_Lloyd closed his eyes tightly as a tear squeezed through his eyes. "Me too, Mom."  
~._

I'd been so cold to her. I'd shown her, in the tiny amount of life I'd known her, that I didn't want to know her, didn't want her to be a part of my life, and that I hated her right off the bat. I guess I was just acting out of how I felt, figuring something that important out without somebody bothering to tell me. I mean, I'd just learned that the voice I'd heard, thinking it was the Eye, was actually Kyon, and _he'd _been the one to tell me who I was, not my mom, or my dad, or even my uncle, and in a way that made me even angrier. But when I thought about Dani, the conclusion said that she'd never hurt me in the time I'd known her. Everything she had done was to protect me, to help me, but never to hurt. Thinking about that made the anger dissipate. I can't stay mad at someone who risked her life so that I could have mine.

I reached out and touched the smooth saying beneath her name, _loving mother, kind friend, and smiling witch_, knowing I was touching words with more meaning than the few adjectives could place. Maybe she wasn't my real mom, but she'd treated me like I was her child, through the pushes away, through the spitting comebacks, through the refusals. She had done what she could for us. And maybe it was just Danielle's time, and she was too tired of living, this situation giving her that opportunity to go without a suicide letter. Treating her the way I had was wrong, and I wanted to apologize to her and thank her and tell her that I cared about her, but now that opportunity was long gone. It was as impossible as bringing Kaos back from the dead.

I rested the rose vertically against the ground, wishing for a second chance to go back and say these things to her so that she could know that I didn't hate her the way I showed her I did. I rubbed the lawn once, hopes low. "Thanks, Mom," I said softly, and stood. I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my black pressed pants, my suit's outer shell cold from the endless waves of freeze glossing through the shifts in the wind, marauders to our small—still movements making the only noise—gathering before the people we respected.

Beside Danielle's grave we had placed one without quite knowing how exactly to name him when the monumental mason demanded a last name we had no answer to; with the suggestion of Zane, the etched name of fitting quality beamed out from black marble in silver. "Jace Braveheart" didn't have a picture, but it did have a saying: _his fearless capability of rebelling for what he believed in carried him to a place he deserves to be: heaven. _(Zane, too, came up with that.) I didn't know him at all, other than a Bizarro who was…bizarro. But I saw Seiko, in a pair of dark jeans, black Converse sneakers, and a dark sweatshirt—she refused all morning to wear the little black dress that Nya brought over for her, refused to even so much as step in to see if it fit—reach out and place one of her roses against his grave. She touched his name, not smiling, but channeling her feelings into the fingertips that traced the name _Jace. _"Thank you," she said, and that was the only noise in the whole spur of us for a while.

Beside Jace was a name that made me want to chuckle and choke at the same time. Grand Sensei Dareth Challenger had helped me through times that I couldn't have gotten through without his help. By that, I wholly mean when I had Arachnaeus. He had helped me when he didn't need to, had accompanied me on my research for the language of the ancient Shadow Key, and had taken me to the hospital when I clearly hadn't asked for that, but did it anyway. He was a guy who, when the Ninja were tired out from training me in his dojo, made stupid jokes to me (when I was a kid) to help cheer me up, and even bought strawberry milk to keep in his fridge at the dojo for me so Kai could to stop bringing it from our apartment. (I don't know if I've ever said this, but strawberry milk was my favorite thing to drink as a kid, and I usually held that over everyone's head by saying I refused to train if I didn't have a glass in the morning and in the afternoon. I know. Weird. I think it tastes nasty now that I'm older, which is just as weird.) He was a friend to us, a Grand Sensei to others, and someone that was on our visitations list after the Overlord was defeated.

And now…like so many others…he was dead because of us.

I didn't even know how he died, but Danielle had told my mom, Ed, Edna, and Lou when she came to them a month ago, during the time that Jay, Nya, Cole, and Zane lost their memories, that she found Dareth's body on the _Bounty 2, _dead. She said that she'd taken and buried him somewhere—I don't get why she didn't put him in a cemetery—and unfortunately, nobody could find where that burial site was, so we bought him a headstone with nothing to lie underneath. It made me feel horrible.

All four of the original Ninja had already given him a flower. Mine was there already, too.

Maya Kiko 's gravestone was beside his. Underneath her name, Seiko had requested it write, _great friend _underneath it, but when she had left the memorialist's office, I changed it to _loving best friend. _When she saw it this morning she gave me a hard look. The flowers on Maya's grave added up to a total of two: one from me, and one from her living doppelganger. Nobody else quite understood the tale of Maya and what her past really said like I did. She'd never lived to tell it. But I would for her.

And lastly, rowed up beside all else, the last gravestone in the lineup was marked by newly-uncovered dirt and a headstone that was 2 inches taller than all the other ones, because that is what Kai had asked for. Noel's body was buried six feet underneath the surface, but his coffer hadn't been tossed over with rose petals before he was buried—Kai believed that's not what Noel would think was respecting of his ending. Instead, Kai had taken a flaming hot finger and torched the words _vivere fratrem _into the top of his glossy casket, words of an ancient language called "Latin" that Kai said meant the words "live on brother." I'd known Noel to be a creepy, pedophilic, needle-wielding freak from the Underworld who stuck his guests with Devourer's venom and killed girls with exotic fruits. He had seemed pretty evil to me when I had been down for a visit, but when he'd come up here, it was like a completely different person had taken his place. Sensei told me that was how Noel really acted when he wasn't trying to please Eloquim, and informed me that he was actually not that bad of a kid. That he was actually just like anybody else, just ruling the Underworld that he was afraid to take over. I wondered what would happen now that there was no one left to rule the Underworld.

We all stood in front of the people that we named, watching their headstones in hush and wintry ice starting to settle in as the seasons took shift. It was simple: Me, the Ninja, my parents, Seiko, Nya and Rie, Ming and Rikku all gathered for a funeral that had no words. (Seiko opted to let Bokuyo be babysat by Ed and Edna.) I stuck my hands in my pockets, and from my side, my mom wrapped an arm around me, resting her head against my arm. I put an arm around her, too. She was missing Julien.

Then, I saw Rikku stand up, dusting off his pressed pants and reaching a hand out to Zane. "Come," he said softly, breaking the quiet, "I want to show you something."

Zane followed him away from the headstones, not making a sound or looking back at us. Their shapes disappeared into ants, far off in the distance.

* * *

Zane's heart was heavy. He followed his brother further and further away from the ceremony, leaving his family and friends in the shadows of his steps. He walked along the spaces between the headstones until he could never see his friends anymore, but he didn't look back to check; he felt his heart swallow itself whole and eat away at the hole in his chest. His face was impassive as Rikku brought them upon a tall monument with four small little plates at its base. The monument, in cracking letters barely visible, said "Montgomery" in all capitals. Zane recognized his own last name, and Rikku stopped before the four plates, sighing in a way Zane didn't know that robots sighed. He looked up at his big brother. "Look," Rikku told him, and nodded towards the ground. Zane edged forward to look at what was there for him to see.

ROSS MONTGOMERY, said one plate. _Father. _

It was his father.

Zane looked on.

ROSE MONTGOMERY. _Mother._

His mother.

Zane touched it after bending down. He felt something surge up inside of him, cutting and aching, so he moved on, trying not to get hurt any more than he already was.

RIKKU MONTGOMERY, _son. _

Zane's head snapped around. Rikku met his gaze with emptiness. His body was buried underneath Zane's feet. He stepped off the front of the grass so he wasn't stepping on top of where his brother was buried, trampling his brother's humanity with his own. He touched the plated stone in sadness and looked up again, finding his brother meeting his eyes with shallow pain this time. Zane looked over to the last one, and felt he already knew what he was looking at before his eyes rested on the four letters of his own name.

Zane was buried here.

He took a sharp inhale.

And then, without warning, it all came rushing back.

_"Don't be like that!" said a voice, prodding him in the shoulder with a hand. Zane stood above the grave, empty inside, where his body had just been recently buried. In the memory, it was summer time, and there was the chirp of birds running around his head and tangling in his hair, rustling him with the soft wind that carried his name across the grass that wept with his death. Sort of._

_"I'm already buried," said the voice again, and when Zane looked over, he suddenly knew who she was. Carolyne's long red hair curled over her shoulders in curlicues that fit perfectly around his finger, as he discovered from trying it out. Her arm was laced through his, and what she wore was a pair of men's trousers and a long-sleeved button up underneath. She nudged him, hazel eyes twinkling. "You shan't be so depressed over nothing, love. You are alive."_

_"I am no more a human."_

_"Nor am I!" she exclaimed, sweeping her hand across the air to his gravestone. "But there is eternity before us now, and we have to accept what has become of our future—I think living forever sounds quite nice." Carolyne pressed her lips to his neck, the only place she could reach. Her eyes became soft. "Come, now, Zane. Father awaits." _

_Zane looked over his shoulder at the shape of Julien in the distance, at his side speaking to someone Zane didn't recognize at first, but then did. It was Yuki. It was hard to pick up on him without the long white robes he usually wore; Yuki had on his own match to what Carolyne wore. He still had that ponytail in. The clothes everyone was wearing were so…vintage. Julien looked over at them and waved. Zane turned back to Carolyne, then at his gravestone. He turned around to his new father without ever looking back._

Zane was snapped by something he didn't understand completely, but then did. The rush of all his memories came hissing into perspective, shadowing him in its immense grasp of morality. He looked at his brother, and instead of the clueless shadow he'd seen him in before, he suddenly saw all the memories that were behind Rikku's face that Zane was convoyed with, all the things that they went through together, all the facets of his brainwash melting away, and revealing to him the truth about who they were, about who _Zane _was, and tears came flooding out his eyes. He gasped. "Rikku," he whispered, bringing his hand to his mouth.

He remembered.

* * *

"Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Kai turned around. The ceremony, if that was even the right word, was slowly breaking up, and everybody was starting to move out their own stream, some lingering, some leaving. Kai had already watched Nya leave with Jay after giving both of them long, lingering hugs, his heart heavy underneath his chest in tune with their own disabled beats, and wished them things to Jay's ear that he wanted for them. Jay had patted him along the back and told him to "hang in there, partner," but it didn't make kissing Nya's cheeks any easier for Kai. He had already gave an awkward departure to Cole—no hugs there—with promises. He'd never made so many promises in his life. Now he was waiting for Zane, and…well, he was cornered by Lloyd.

But this had to be done.

Kai looked at his feet before he managed the courage well for a little bit of a donation. Dragging his eyes up to Lloyd's, he found his best friend standing there, giving a little bit of a nervous press together of his lips. Kai slipped his hands into his pockets and bit his lip, nodding. He knew what was coming.

They wandered off a ways from the gathering, both looking at the ground, trying to see through the awkward silences. Kai's lip would start bleeding if he kept chewing on it the way he was. He looked over at Lloyd, finally, when the Green Ninja came to a total stop beside a couple of trees, wandering eyes away from the crowd. Kai's face warmed in the chilly air.

"What's"—Kai cleared his throat—"what's up?"

Lloyd's breath was large. He looked into Kai's eyes, then away, and had a hard time keeping them in one spot, glancing all over the cemetery in his words. Kai blinked. "I've been doing some thinking," Lloyd said slowly. This time, his eyes stayed with Kai's. There was a pause. "And I decided that our relationship isn't going to change because of how you feel about me," he said. Kai shivered. "By that, I mean that we're not going to be any less of friends. Like, I'm not gonna start hating you because of the way you feel." Lloyd shrugged. "You're too important in my life for me to just cut you off. Though your feelings are not what I expected to hear"—Lloyd looked a little funny when he said that—"from you, I mean, I just—you're my best friend, and taking you out of my life would be stupid. It happens. But...this is how we are. This is how you feel. And it's not going to change how I feel about you." Lloyd rubbed the back of his neck. "We can still be friends, you know. Don't think that we won't be just because you're in love with me."

Kai breathed a sigh of relief. He'd been hoping to hear that. But… "I'm glad you can move on so easily," Kai said, and his voice was so close to breaking. He looked down. "I'm glad you're willing to accept me. But Lloyd…I can't."

Lloyd stared at him for a minute, blinking. Kai pressed his lips together, trying to bite down the words he was going to continue with so he'd never have to say them, but this had to be done. The astonishment of his friend showed on his face, but that was yet another thing Kai couldn't look at. "I can't do this anymore," he whispered. "I can't pretend I'm okay when I'm not." His breath was white puffs in front of his face. Kai could feel the weight of his truth showering down on him. He _wasn't _okay. He hadn't been, for, forever. Lloyd watched his face intently, drawn to him. "I'm not myself anymore. I haven't been. I'm not…I don't feel like I'm who I am. I've been trying to put on a brave face for everyone, but now that it's over, and the Shadow Key is destroyed, and we have nothing else to worry about, I just can't play that game. Not anymore. I'm…I'm not…" His voice caught. He closed his eyes and rested his shoulder against the nearby tree. He couldn't look at Lloyd's face. "I can't stay here another night."

"What do you mean?" Lloyd was quick to ask, worry eating him.

Kai licked his lips, opening the eyes that were dying to see him but dreading to at the same time. "I'm not going back to the monastery, Lloyd."

Lloyd's became frantic. His face was shocked, and hurt, and worried, and everything from the funerals had also made its way in there. He appeared dizzy in Kai's vision. His eyes, hidden underneath slightly furrowed brows, tailored the slightly-parted lips of fear. "What? Why not? Where are you going?"

Kai kept his cold fingers in his pockets. He was hurting all over. "I'm going to Ignacia," he said shyly. "I'm going to stay there until I get better. Until I figure everything out. Open up shop again, get the community back on its feet. _Four Weapons _needs me. You guys…" He swept his hand towards the distant funeral, now dwindling in numbers. "…don't."

"Of course we need you!" Lloyd cried. He looked so hurt it made Kai rethink his decision, putting his foot down a second later and telling himself, _No. I have to do this. _"You're our best friend, the hotheaded guy that balances out Cole's abilities to be a leader—I mean, he can't do it without you! He'll have no one to keep an eye on! You're the guy who cooks Zane's marshmallows with your finger when he doesn't want to start a campfire! You're Jay's best friend who messes with him all the time, but serious when it comes to her. You're Nya's BROTHER! Who's gonna moderate her relationships without you?!" Lloyd reached for Kai, grabbing his jacket. Kai looked at the ground miserably. "What about _me? _You're _my _best friend! Who am I gonna tell everything to? Who am I going to play against in a staring contest? Who am I going to lean on? Who's gonna play jokes on Cole with me? Who's going to wake me up in the morning by throwing marshmallows at me, and who's hair gel am I going to steal, and who's shoelaces am I going to triple knot? WHO'S HIGH SCORE AM I GONNA OVERWRITE?!"

Kai sighed, running a hand over his thick black hair. To hear all that made him feel like a piece of shit in a dog park. He chuckled, despite himself, in something that didn't hold very much humor. He looked into the desperate blue eyes and loved them. "I'm not gonna be dead," he said. "I'm just going to be taking a little time in emotional rehab."

A glimpse of that little kid inside of Lloyd peeked out. He looked like he did when he found out he'd be the one to face his father, and that look he always gave Kai before the Ninja left him on board the ship to do a mission, the _oh-please-won't-you-let-me-come _stare. Kai reached out and softly punched his arm, trying to take away the hurt in both of them. "But…" Lloyd protested.

"Butts are for sitting," Kai told him. He took a deep breath to numb the pain. "Besides," he glanced around the tree at the funeral party, now teensy without Jay and Nya, plus the missing Rikku and Zane. His eyes fell on the dark haired, grey-eyed sister of earth. "I think you've got a new shadow."

Lloyd looked over, looking broken. He frowned at who Kai pointed out, mouth half open only to reveal his teeth, dead eyes rolling over her. Seiko didn't notice that both of them were looking at her, instead saying something to Misako and Damon, her face expressioned with passion for the point she was making. Whatever it was. Lloyd looked back at Kai. "She can't be compared to you," he told him harshly.

"No, but she'll keep you busy until we see each other again."

Lloyd's voice whispered over the wind, barely audible. "And how long will that be?"

Kai shrugged. "As long as it takes me," he casually said, looking back at the gathering. "I don't know. We can still talk. Phone-wise, I mean. I still want to hear your voice." He regretted that last sentence, but it didn't bother Lloyd. Kai chewed his cheek. "I need this, Lloyd," his voice dropped from the loud it had been, trying to make his point viable. "I need time. A lot of time."

Lloyd didn't say anything. He stared at the ground miserably. Kai wished he knew what Lloyd was thinking, what words were going through his brain to speak for the things that were happening right now. Having that sixth sense to know that would actually be pretty helpful at a time as heavy as this one, but there was nothing supernatural about Kai. He reached over and put both arms around Lloyd, pulling him into a hug, and Lloyd quickly wrapped his arms back, tightly squeezing onto him. They said nothing for a long while, just held on. Kai put his lips to the padding of the suit over Lloyd's shoulder, squeezing his eyes shut. He felt the rumble of Lloyd's voice, sensually low, in his ear. "Don't take too long, okay?" Lloyd asked. He squeezed Kai's waist.

_I can't stay away from you for too long, _Kai thought, but didn't say that. Instead, he gave a tight hug to Lloyd, and after he couldn't hold on any tighter, reached with one hand to ruffle the back of his soft golden hair. "Love you, kiddo," he murmured. For once, Lloyd didn't protest to the name.

Kai looked at him one last time before he left: golden hair, bright blue eyes, pale cheeks, sculpted nose. How his eyebrows were a shade darker than his hair, and his lips were pink and medium thin, and his eyelashes were brown. How he was just two inches shorter than Kai. How he nervously rubbed the tattoo on his hand. How he looked so damn cute in that suit that it hurt to look at him. Kai blinked, trying to hold back his tears and swallow the ache. This was how he'd remember Lloyd Garmadon. Forlorn. Sad. Missing him already. But behind that was a year and a half full of _good _memories, memories that Kai would hold onto the whole time he was healing to be his motivation. He'd already said goodbye to the others at the monastery before they came here—he'd already talked to them about this the night that Kaos died, two days ago, and received support from all of them—now it was just a matter of looking forward, and trying not to let this past few months of trauma, death, and destruction haunt him. He needed to focus on getting better—not just for himself, but for his family, too. Kai smiled at Lloyd one last time, and turned around, leaving him to stand there and watch him walk between the rows and rows of headstones on his path to recovery. (Actually, to his car first, but you get the idea.) The Ninja of Fire left all of his best friends, his past, his time as a hero, his won battles behind, and not once did he ever look back.

* * *

Jay pulled up at Isadora Park, looking out at the green grass that wasn't eaten up by frost, and looked over at Nya. She had the picnic basket in her lap, but was twisted around to look at Rie in her car seat in the back, chewing on a pacifier. Nya smiled at her baby.

He'd promised her a picnic, and dammit, though they were just at a funeral, he'd give her one. Nya felt sympathetic towards the lost people, but Nya was pretty much Nya, and she really had no connection to the dead other than by meeting. It didn't feel as bad for her as it did for everyone else. That's why he wanted to do this today. To take his mind off things, and to have a couple hours just with her.

He took the picnic basket from her so she could get Rie out of the car. They climbed the hill from the parking lot into the wonderful part where they'd be setting out the checkered blanket for their "romantic picnic" out (or so Kai had joked about it) and made perch upon the peak of the hill. Jay laid out the blanket, palms sweaty because _oh my goodness he was going on a date with Nya _and he was still a little shaky with dates. She set Rie on her back on top of the blanket. In the part it was a lot warmer than in the cemetery; Jay peeled off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his white button down. Nya deliberately sat down on the blanket so that she wouldn't show anything under the dress by accident, tucking her legs underneath her, and smiling up at him.

Oh, man, he loved her so much…

He opened the basket, smiling. He hoped this worked….

…

The sun was shining brightly and the birds were singing in the trees. _It was a beautiful day for a picnic,_ Nya thought. She'd been glad to accept Jay's request to go for a picnic today, but part of her had only reluctantly been okay with this. The reason she had been reluctant was because he kept badgering her over the past couple of days. Ever since he and the others had begun to regain their memory, he had hardly left her side for a minute. He was worse than Kai had been. But now Kai was gone.

That was another thing that puzzled her, just a little. Kai claimed that he was her brother, but he also called the other three guys his brothers. Did that make them her brothers too? When she had asked Kai, his reply was that they only called themselves 'brothers'. They weren't really related, as he was to her. But then why did they call each other 'brother,' Nya had asked him. Kai had patiently tried to explain it to her, but she still didn't understand. Instead of telling him that though, she simply nodded her head and pretended that she understood.

Nya tickled Rie's stomach affectionately. The baby bubbled at the lips. She looked up at Jay and saw him looking at her with eyes so soft that she blushed under the scrutiny, his face warm and loving, even when Nya only remembered part of being with him—only by feeling. Jay already had told her about gaining back his memory. She was a little envious of him, but didn't say so.

When she'd been getting ready for the funeral, she had pulled on her dress, a little snug around her waist where she'd gained a little weight from Rie. The knock at her door had made her jump about four feet, and she heard a voice call her name.

"Nya?" It sounded like Jay's voice. "Are you almost ready?" he asked. Taking one last look at herself in the mirror, Nya took a deep breath and opened the door. Jay stood there staring at her, his mouth halfway open.

"Wow!" he finally said. Nya felt herself blush at his reaction to her appearance. "So I'm guessing that you're ready?" he clarified. Nya nodded shyly. "Great! Then let's go!" He held his arm out, waiting for her to slip hers through. Nya hesitated for a second before slipping her arm through his. Jay smiled down at her and she returned a small shy smile as he had led her downstairs.

Now, he looked at her so lovingly she felt uncomfortable and happy all at once. "What are you smiling at?" Nya asked, feeling suspicious of a grin like that.

"Oh, it's nothing," he told her. He rummaged through the picnic basket, in search of their food—he also passed her Rie's bottle—and which order to put it out in. He passed her an apple, then her sandwich wrapped in tin foil. Nya took them from him slowly, a little bit nervous herself. She didn't remember how dates worked, really, but the nerves were the worst part of them. She knew she shouldn't be so nervous around Jay, but there was something biting at Nya's memory, something that she felt like she was supposed to know, unable to name irritatingly enough by the restraints kept on the truth from her mind.

They ate in silence for a while, each not knowing what to say to the other. Finally Nya broke the silence.

"It's a nice day, isn't it?" she asked. Jay nodded in agreement. The way the light was falling over his handsome face made her stare at him wholly, open about doing it, and look at the fine contours of the shadows given over the beauty of him. He might not have any extravagant good looks to go with his wonderful personality, but he didn't need them, in Nya's opinion. Though Cole had his tasteful sexiness, there was something about Jay that was more attractive to her heart—maybe it was his amorous eyes, or his easy joking, or the way he had always protected her from anything in the times that both of them had forgotten each other. She couldn't name the affections by their own title well enough to fully capture Jay's handsome personality.

"Yep, not too hot and not too cold here. Waaayyyy better than that cemetery. I thought my fingers were gonna freeze off." he agreed. Nya gave him a soft smile and took a bite of her sandwich, enjoying the taste of lettuce along with her meat, giving her a better distraction to pay attention to. Her heart was pounding too hard for her to feel down-to-earth; she felt like she was floating high up in the sky rather than close enough to the universe.

The silence dawned again.

…

Jay glanced up at Nya. She was facing away from him, watching some children who were playing ball at the bottom of the steep hill. Her hair, twisted into a loose knot, fell out of its keep with small, straight strands that fanned over her face, and she used a free hand to brush them out of the way with her pinky, nails colored in a soft pink. She was so beautiful that it broke his heart.

Jay sighed. She just had to remember him. It hurt him deeply every time that she hesitated when he held his hand out to her or when she flinched whenever he touched her. She would sort of sink into a comfortable tension after that, afraid of Jay in a way that had to do with not being entirely comfortable being touched by a man she hardly remembered loving, but it wasn't like he was going to _hurt _her. He knew that it wasn't her fault that she didn't remember, but he still couldn't help feeling hurt every time she shied away from him.

He HAD to tell her how he felt about her. But how? And what if she didn't feel the same way about him anymore, even though she'd said to him that she remembered the feeling of love? Maybe that feeling just wasn't as strong as it used to be. Would make sense, since she was with Cole for a while. She hadn't _specifically _chosen him. She was just too wary of Cole yet to think about romance. But was Jay forcing himself on her too much? He didn't think he could stand it if Nya told him that she didn't love him. It was one thing having her date his teammate behind his back, but she had never told him she didn't love him. Now, she had no reason to lie to him. She could say that she didn't have feelings for him anymore, and it would all be over—the whole point of this would be ruined.

But to get her back by saying how he felt was worth it, even if she didn't return it.

"Nya," he said, getting her attention. She turned to look at him, eyes expectant for his words, and Jay practically choked on them sitting in his throat. He was gonna die by saying this. It was going to kill him, he knew it, just because his pounding heart and anxiety would send him into a coma in the middle of the plaid blanket. He was sooo gonna die. Forging on, the words came out in a quick rush, like they always did when he was scared. "Nya, I have something to tell you. I know that you don't remember me or any of our dates or the good times we had together, but Nya, I—" he paused long enough to take a deep breath before continuing. _Now or never, _he thought, and choked. "I love you, Nya. I always have and it doesn't matter whether you love me back or not, but I want you to know that I will always love you no matter what. That's why I never could've given up on you after I found out you had slept with Cole, because though you did that, you're—you're my soulmate, y'know? A-and, like, you know, you're the love of my life, and I'd go back to you in a heartbeat even though you did all that stuff, 'cause—'cause you and I, we're..."

His voice trailed off. Nya just stared at him. Jay started to sweat bullets under the calculative look, the narrowed eyes, the _blankness, _and the way that she was looking at him was making him squirm so bad he almost fainted right then and there from an over-sweat heatstroke. His face turned red, listening to himself sound like a total idiot. _She _knew he sounded like an idiot.

…

Nya processed it slowly. Love. Jay said it: _I love you. _

She felt connected to those words, somehow. But _how? _

_It doesn't matter how_, a voice in her head said. _The only thing that matters is that you know it, and now it is your turn. Reach out to him. Touch him._

Nya was hesitant to obey, but the voice continued to insist. Jay had taken her silence as rejection and had turned away from her. Timidly, she reached out her hand and touched his shoulder.

Her touch surprised him and he whirled around to face her. He held her small slender hand in his strong ones, a contrast of skin color: his darker skin to her pale white skin, a yin and yang, giving a smile appearing on his handsome face that she'd been guilty of staring at minutes ago. The smile wasn't broad enough to reach his eyes, though, and that was what made Nya feel like a criminal.

_Kiss him_, the voice inside Nya told her.

_Out of the blue? _She thought, a little lightheaded for a second, the warmth between his clammy palms pressing something through her body more than just his touch. As if he had heard the voice as well, Jay began to slowly lean towards her, his eyes as hesitant as his just movement. Nya felt her breath catch in her throat. _Should_ she kiss him? Were they even considered that close to kiss yet? She'd only known for a few days of their past—but was that enough for intimacy like this?

Jay was coming closer. A few more seconds and he would able to reach her. She could feel his warm breath on her face as he hesitated, waiting for her to give him some kind of signal of permission. Permission for proceeding with his plan. But…should she let him? Second guesses flew through Nya's startled mind. Her throat caught, cleared by a deep breath; she felt her heart thunder against her chest, contained by the little black dress she was wearing. It felt like she'd rip the cloth with its sufficient pounding. Nya looked at his mouth, looked at the lips that looked so soft to the touch, and gently reached up, never taking her eyes away from them. Dragging her fingers over the soft, slightly wet skin, Nya was hit with a sensation of cravings, wondering if he used lip balm to keep them so nourished, or if it was just good genes. Then, taking her other hand out of his, she reached up to lightly skim her fingertips over the soft skin of his cheeks, touching him, feeling him, real underneath her hands. Jay's eyes closed. She continued to feel the beauty of the face she'd been wondering about, tracing the shape of his nose with her fingertips, drawing the bone under his high cheekbones, progressing her thumbs over his eyelids. She touched the interesting slash in his brown eyebrow, painted pictures on his jaw with her trace, and moved her hands through his soft hair. He felt familiar to her. Right.

Nya wrapped her hands around his neck, and Jay opened his eyes, passionately burning across her face. Nya's heart hit her in the chest second after second, but she was ready for this. She slowly closed her eyes. And that was all the permission he needed.

Jay's mouth, so suave, touched hers. He kissed her. Just one mellow brush of his across hers—but Nya felt a jolt shoot through her body. Her fingers tingled, her heart raced, and her mouth opened, gasping for breath that wouldn't seem to come to her rescue. She gasped. Something inside of her head shifted a little; Jay pulled back an inch so he could look into her eyes, worried that he'd somehow hurt her, but Nya was being exploded with feels, attacked by her own heart. She wanted to feel that again. Tilting up her chin, she beckoned for him again, and Jay, putting one hand over her bare, bent thigh, leaned in closer again.

Nya inhaled through her nose, filling herself with Jay's scent of soap and cologne. Hands shaking, she dug her nails into the collar of his shirt, things inside of her head swallowing and eating through vigorous shelters, dying inside every time she was within her own mind—it felt like rubber bands breaking, one by one, guitar strings snapping when played too hard, her body taking on its own. The things she thought she knew were starting to fly away, little balloons rising into the air—the misconception of Lloyd as the father of Rie disappeared with them. The inhibition of small vocabulary floated away next. She tightened her hands around Jay, and he kissed her mouth over and over again, never losing contact with hers. His fingers kneaded into the muscle of her thigh with every kiss as its pattern. She felt her head become too light.

And then the last rubber band snapped, and it all came flooding back.

Nya cried out as the last of the lies disappeared, letting Jay go, knocked over by a heavy wind onto her back across the plaid blanket she questioned was authentic, the sky her new visionary. She didn't realize she'd been holding onto Jay so tightly, and she didn't notice that she'd crawled into his lap, wrapping her legs around him. Only now as she looked to the clouds did she remember doing it.

Jay's worried face came into her vision. "Nya!" he gasped, leaning over her to catch her eye, but she stared at the clouds, eyes wide, chest heaving, and face warm. She blinked to keep away from dry eyes.

"Nya! Are you okay?" Finally, Jay's face came fully into view as he leaned over her, and Nya watched his face grow extremely worried for her. She looked at him for a second—but this time, instead of looking at him, she saw all of him, not just the current time, but ALL the times they'd spent together for the years she'd known him. She gasped again. Her memories—

"Jay," she whispered, seeing his face for the first time again when she'd first met him, jumping from Kai's dragon and noticing that out of the three new friends of her brother's, he was the one she was drawn to. _My friend cannot speak, but he wants to know if you like blue. _It was her favorite color, so of course she did. His smile. The time when he took her to get a few of her things when Sensei Wu insisted that she live with them flashed in her mind, and she remembered holding onto his waist on Wisp, flying high through the air. She'd pressed her face into his back, initially afraid of heights—Kai had been so adamant that day, not enjoying that his sister was coming to live with them, so he refused to take her back to the shop. He'd told her specifically that if he did, it would just be to drop her off. "This is a _Ninja _base," he'd said. "Not Ninja and their little _sisters _base!"

Jay'd nudged him, raising an eyebrow. "C'mon, lighten up," he'd advised Kai. "You want her livin' at home where she can be kidnapped again?"

Kai had grumbled a _no. _

"I'll take you," Jay had offered, politely smiling. Nya had stuck out her tongue at her evil brother on the way out.

Nya looked at him now, heart pounding. "What?!" Jay asked, worried, but he shouldn't have been. Nya took a deep breath.

"I remember you."

"You….what?" Jay frowned, not understanding.

Nya reached up, touching his face as he hovered over her, and began to laugh. "I remember you," she repeated, and dawning on his face was the light going on in his head.

"Oh my gosh!"

Nya laughed again. She pulled him down towards her. "I love you, Jay Walker," she whispered against his mouth.

"I love you too, Nya," he said, and leaned in to kiss her again.

* * *

Cole stood in front of Maya's grave, trying to understand what it meant. He'd only half-understood that the girl that he'd thought was evil actually was good, and after reading the note she had written for Seiko, got even more confused. Kaos had said he faked the evility of Maya somehow into making them believe she was the bad guy when she really wasn't. Did that mean that when she was chasing Cole around and beating him up, she wasn't actually begging for him to give her a kid?

He guessed they'd never know, now that the only two people who could explain that to him were dead.

Cole pursed his lips. This had been one helluva journey, hadn't it? Day one of the Shadow Dancer's wrath had turned their worlds upside down, making every one of those tragedies turn into a huge mess and the worst moments of their lives—and basically, none of it was real. All that shit that had happened was just their imagination.

But now, all of it was over. The Shadow Key was as good as useless, either destroyed completely by the bombs that were attached to Danielle's body or just stuck in some inaccessible place between dimensions, where no one would ever find it. Kaos was dead. (No one could've survived that.) Cole didn't know how the Shadow Dancers would fare without a leader to keep an eye on them, since both Eloquim _and _Kaos were defunct, but he had a strong feeling they'd be dormant for a long time. No threat would come from those numbskulls.

So basically…they had no more enemies to fight. The battle was over.

Their destinies had been fulfilled. Sort of.

He supposed now they all had the same problem they did when the Overlord was gone: What now? Cole wasn't fond of that question, but he could tell that, having grown with so much experience from the Shadow Dancer journey, everyone would gladly take a break from being a Ninja. Cole didn't know what he wanted to do yet, but over the last two days, he'd been giving it some thought, and the concept of maybe going back to the Oppenheimer had come up. He might not have been a singer or dancer, but the Oppenheimer _did _have the 'performing arts' part down, and he thought about pursuing a career in acting. Or maybe he'd go to a school for cooking like his mom had, the Jennifer Caraldeen Culinary School. The opportunities were sort of endless at this point. Plus, putting the fact that he was one of Ninjago's heroes on his application might score him a place in a great school.

Only time would tell where they went from here.

It was no question that Jay was going to stay with Nya, and he was happy about that. He would gladly let her go. BUT, one thing he was very adamant about when discussing this with them yesterday, he demanded he had the right to see his daughter whenever he wanted to. He didn't think Nya would have a problem with that. They both chuckled at him and told him he could see her whenever he liked.

His life was pretty much complete at this point. So who knows what'll happen next?

His ears twitched when he heard footsteps come up behind him. Cole looked back to see Seiko standing at his side; for a long time, neither of them said anything, but it wasn't a silence that didn't know what to say. It was a comfortable moment. When it came to her, if you'd talked to him about her four days ago, Cole would've icily responded something angry that wasn't complimentary to anyone. But now, with everything that had happened, he felt guilty for being so rude to her, and if you asked him the same question his reply would be softer, kinder, and less of an insult. Over the past couple of days, he'd bonded with her a little better—they could at least talk without hatred now. That relationship _definitely _needed mending—it was rockier than any relationship he'd had, even the one with Jay—but he was determined to make sure they became friends again. It would take time, but, looking out on their future, they had all the time in the world.

"So…" Seiko shifted feet, head tilted up to him. Cole met her eyes, so similar to his. They got that from their mother. Put them in a lineup, and you'd know exactly that they were siblings; their features were very similar. Since Seiko had suddenly aged in the way that Lloyd had, losing three years in a matter of minutes, she looked so much like their Mom that it made Cole flood with memories every time he looked at her. She looked nothing like the vicious fifteen year old he'd seen her as before, but an independent young woman now, someone who looked empty and wise all at once. It was weird to see her that way, but he thought that had something to do with being able to accept her better than he could've if she'd still been younger. When she talked, she wasn't as insulting as before—she still insulted things, but they weren't really insults for people anymore, usually just ranting about how stupid she thought an object or concept was—and it made her _easier _to be around. She was older, smarter, and more experienced. She was an attractive young woman now. Not a derpy little kid. Cole was reliving Lloyd all over again, just in a more personal way.

"So?" Cole looked at Maya's name again. Seiko slid her hands into her back pockets.

"So do you think I should buy an apartment or move in with Dad?"

Cole was surprised to hear _that _come out of her mouth. He glanced down at her. "You're suddenly friends with Dad?" He asked. She hadn't talked much to Lou the whole time he was living at the monastery with them, seeming not to want to build the relationship that Lou said he wanted to start with her. She didn't want anything to do with him. Why move in with him if she didn't?

"No," Seiko said, "but I need a place to stay." She brought her shoulders to her ears in cold. "Maya left me—get this—five _million _dollars in a couple of bank accounts she put in my name. It was all her cash that she, well I'm guessing either stole or earned or something over the years—but that's a _lot _of money. She told me to spend it wisely."

Cole stared. "You're rich," he finally said.

Seiko shrugged. _Her voice is so different, _Cole thought. No longer high pitched, but deep, and warmer than before. He guessed the Maya and Seiko thing was deeper than he thought it was if he left her all that money when she acted like she hated Seiko all the time. Cole stuck his hands in his pockets. "You can stay at the monastery, you know," he told her. Seiko's "innocent" eyes looked up at him. "You don't have to leave. You're welcome to stay there as long as you need to—_I'm _not kicking you out, and I know no one else is, either."

Seiko blinked, turning back to the gravestone in front of them and smirking slightly. "Wow," she said. "You hear that, Maya? For once he isn't trying to kill me with his words."

Cole didn't laugh. He felt terrible for doing that. "You know I'm sorry for being that way," he told her, reminiscing the discussion they'd had before. "I was horrible for no reason. I've been clinging to the past and the things you'd done, but I never actually stopped to see that you aren't who you used to be." Cole's hands balled in his pockets. "I'm sorry. Though that can't take away what I've done—"

"Oh, pah," she waved a hand at him. "You know I hate groveling. And Cupcake-worthy apologies. I already told you, we can move forward. Our eyes _are _in the front of our heads, you know," she told him. She turned back to Maya. "I don't know. I might crash with you guys for a while, but I've got my own life now." She wet her lips with her soft pink tongue. "I've got a…screamy poopy baby that I have to take care of against my will, and I guess that eventually I'm gonna have to break away from you guys to take care of him on my own."

"You'll get the hang of it," Cole said, thinking about Rie. "And if it's really hard, you can always have Ed and Edna babysit for you. Or Zane."

Seiko snorted. "Zane's idea of babysitting would involve butterflies, _Mythbusters_, and a lot of random comments. I think that, as great as it is that he likes to change diapers, he probably wouldn't do a very good job."

"Zane might be mentally four, but he's responsible," Cole defended. "Just make sure that you take all the butter out of the house so he won't make a slip-n-slide out of the hallway with it."

Seiko laughed. "We'll see."

The sun began to rise higher in the horizon, casting the headstones penetrating the land in a golden light and turning the misty fog a shade of silver and white, sparkling off the dew drops and the last of the leaves slowly starting to wither and crack off the trees overlooking the cemetery as protectors of the dead. As dawn broke, they watched the fog creep across the land in a perfect silence, and for a long time, neither of them said a word.

**THE END**


	85. Bonus Story Inside

**BONUS STORY:  
**When a Demon Dies

The Underworld's river wrapped outside of the forest of white, where weathering trees crooked over white grass, a strange and ugly sight if you asked any demon that considered it to be a place you went to think. Upperworlders probably would steer clear of the roguish wood where creatures unheard of frazzled and played, but it was where demons considered a place of thought and inspiration. As if demons NEEDED inspiration. Half of them were idiots, anyway.

The river was never named—the demons were too stupid to name it anything—but it was said that this is where the dead monsters of Aboveground are reborn when they are cast out of, as humans say, 'Earth,' and brought back in a new light. A lot of monsters thought that was a myth—I did say _idiots, _did I not?—and that there was no such thing as reincarnation when they believed in no religion, _especially _since they were sinful things, but you need no god in the river. Just a miracle.

I'll bet you that you thought I sounded like an idiot, too, after claiming miracles could bring someone from the dead. Let me tell you this: No. It is no miracle. I don't know what it is, but it happens. I've seen it.

The water is pretty much disgusting to drink, but it's relatively warm inside, probably due to the fact that the two suns of the Underworld keep it pret-ty busy when it comes to heating. They don't _ever _go down. Anyway, it's nice down there, but it's murky, and you can hardly see anything in its depths. You can feel weeds wrapping around your body, grabbing onto you—sewing you together, you see. No needle, no thread, but something to that effect.

Just think: you could be a masterpiece! Created by a piece of weed! Congrats!

No.

The weeds feel gross around my ankles, and using my brain, I kick them away, using my upper body strength to push me upwards from the river's floor to the surface of the green waters. Light distorts from the suns above, and I think I can tell that it's probably close to dinner time. Good. I'm starved.

I kick through the water and push myself up through the bubbling water, only taking my first breath through my new lungs as I hit the air—now _this _is my kind of air. Up _there_, I am pretty much suffocated by the cleanliness of the human oxygen—I like it clogged down here. Much more acceptable, by my standards. My new eyes are wiped clean by my new hands, and I gasp for breath, my hands finding the edge of ground at the river quickly. I'm pretty much stark naked at this point. I push myself onto the dry white grass and lay there for a minute, totally overcome by the heat—if I lay there, the wet water droplets on my body will completely disintegrate. I take a minute.

Death is not peaceful in the human world.

I'm just glad I'm back home now.

I sit up, flipping my wet hair out to get rid of the water. Wow. What a day.

"Ahem."

I frown at the voice and turn around by my hips, seeing a familiar pair of clawed feet, black skin, and a furry body leading up to the snout, with dangerously evil green eyes narrowed, staring out at me in anger. I watch a long, slick tail lash back and forth with irritation. This probably means my ass is about to get kicked. I casually wipe water out of my eyes.

Arms crossed, Eloquim looked pissed off. He's even tapping his foot. I thought chicks only did that.

My cheesy smile doesn't earn one from him. I wonder how he got out of his cell?

"Um," I say, clearing my throat. "This isn't what it looks like."

Eloquim shows his fangs at me. "You locked me up, you insufferable idiot."

"Insufferable, yes," I say, getting to my wobbly feet. These new legs are a little tense. "Idiot, no."

"You _are _an idiot. You LOCKED me UP."

"Yes, and now I see you're out." I put my hands on my hips, raising and eyebrow. It disappears under my hair line. "You're not dead; don't get so angry."

Eloquim snarls at me. I hold up both hands in surrender. "Easy, doggy," I say. Eloquim snarls again defiantly. "How'd you know I was here?"

"I knew you'd die up there eventually. You're not exactly the most graceful idiot around."

He's not gonna stop calling me an idiot. I wipe water off my bare arms, then put my hands on my hips again, noticing that he's trying not to notice my naked-ness. I grin. "So…" I say in subject change, gesturing to my body. See? _The river actually works! _"How about a pair of pants for your King?"

Eloquim shakes his head, turning around, lashing his tail as he grabs something off the ground for me. Such a nice Shadow Dancer, isn't he? Of course he'd bring me pants. He tosses the pair at me while I drag them on, scowling at me with bright burning eyes. I adjust the waistband at my hips and take the shirt he tosses at me, too. "See? Crime doesn't always pay, brother, does it?" I say. "Nice deeds get you somewhere."

"I see the Ninja brainwashed you," Eloquim curls his lip, eyeing me. "What exactly were you doing up there, Noel?"

I reach out and put an arm around his shoulders, happy as in the distance, I see my castle rise high above all the other things in this hellish place, tall and very homely. I couldn't wait to go to sleep in my bed, actually. I start pulling Eloquim along with me by the shoulders, using my arm to gesture at the grandeur, my face in a grin I don't think I'm going to lose for a while. He eyeballs me as we walk for home while I began my glorious tale. This is going to be good. "There once was a Sagittarius named Noel Smith, who ruled the lands by his bravery and honor to the people he protected…"


	86. AUTHORS NOTE and BOOK 5 SUMMARY!

**Dear Readers,**

**Before I tell you the news... (and I ask you to please read this whole message)**

**I wanted to say thank you all so much for reading NfaN, and sticking with it, and putting up with all my crazy ideas and plot twists and characters. :) I know I've told you a milion times that without you, NfaN would be a project I never continued, and I'm so grateful for you guys to have been here and to love my work, to read it, to review and give me my feedback. thank you so much for being wonderful, and for reading, and for supporting me through the many bumps in the road I've hit. I'm so glad not only to write this but also give you al something to read, to love, and to grow with as I have grown with you.**

**The topic of the fifth book in the series is exciting for me, but I have something to tell you. Since I have to start school again and am hitting 10th grade, it's going to be tough to get back into the swing of things, doing homework while also trying to be with Ru, and I will have a lot to deal with all at once- so I'm kind of apologetic to tell you that I'll be taking at least a month before I begin writing Book 5. Maybe it'll be longer than that, I don't know, but I will strive for as early as I can to begin Book 5. I know. :( It's sad, but my summer is over, and I have to get used to everything before I start worrying about writing again. So thank you for being patient with me. I love you all. :) **

**You might be wondering what Book 5 is about, and I'll tell you the summary of it. Maybe the teaser will eat you alive, maybe it won't... :) We will see, won't we? So here's the official book summary: **

It's been four years since the Ninja defeated Kaos the Deadly and destroyed the Shadow Key along with it. Everything is...well, as normal as it could possibly get if you're a bunch of retired Ninja, and by that it is meant literally. The question that scared them the most when they were left jobless after the Overlord was defeated now becomes their reality, but as time moves on, they grow further and further apart from each other and contact between friends soon becomes nonexistent. Hotheaded Fire Ninja Kai Smith lives in Ignacia running his father's shop, as he always knew he would growing up, and his love interest has seemed to have shifted from his best friend onto a new apple of his eye. He no longer thinks about being the best ninja there ever was, but rather has become more focused on starting a family. The Earth-bound leader, Cole Mitsuhide, has migrated from the grounds of the Monastery of Peace onto the Marty Oppenheimer College for Performing Arts, where he's been focused on majoring in acting. With homework, plays, and even offers from agents all over Ninjago dying to represent him taking up his time, Cole can't keep his eyes on his scattered team of Ninja while also doing his job. The silver-tongued Ninja of Lightning Jay Walker has taken to settling down with Nya Smith-Walker, whom he happily has been married to for three years, and keeps himself busy taking care of their two children, plus Rie Tanaka Mitsuhide. Jay opened up a shop in Ignacia that is for repairing all types of technology, and with his wife as his trusty assistant, he becomes a skilled businessman. The curious ex-Nindroid, Zane Montgomery, remains at the Monastery of Peace with his brother, Rikku, and carries out their deceased father's, Julien Juliens, work, building and repairing robots in hopes to one day be as good as his father. As hard as he's tried in the past to keep all of his friends from drifting apart, Zane, too, has let go of his past as a Ninja.

The only one who tries to hold onto that is the destined Ultimate Spinjitzu Master, Lloyd Garmadon, who has dark times of his own coming his way. Trying to go to school and match an education while working at the slowly-making-a-comeback Doomsday Comics on the side, Lloyd lives in an apartment with his roommate, Seiko Mitsuhide, and her son, Bokuyo. Seiko works herself to support herself and her son using the money she earns herself, working as a waitress at the coffee shop next to Doomsday Comics, rather than dipping her hand into the funds she got from a deceased friend of hers. But ever since his nineteenth birthday, Lloyd, once happy in his position, slowly becomes overcome by the darkness that happens because of a certain toxin in his veins: Devourer's venom. Darkness consumes his heart, and every day it beats, he becomes closer and closer to what his father used to be.

One night, Zane has a prophetic dream, telling him of a cure that exists for Devourer's venom- but the journey is long and dangerous to get all the ingredients, and most of them are almost unreachable if one acts alone. Zane must try to reconnect the Ninja team to find the cure for Lloyd- and as the clock ticks down, it's only a matter of days before Lloyd is destroyed completely by the venom past the point of being saved. Can the Ninja come together to save their friend, or will their differences and long-time separation cripple them in the journey? Will they get all the ingredients for the cure in time, or will Lloyd Garmadon be consumed by darkness forever?

**Find out in NfaN, Book 5: SHADOWLAND.**

**(Thanks to EdgeChronicles01 for the idea of the cure. :3) **

**So you guys... *cries* I love you all so much, and I hope I got you excited for SHADOWLAND! I will see you here when NfaN comes back on (I have set a date as of 2 seconds ago) SEPTEMBER 26! Do you know why I picked that day? BECAUSE THAT'S THE OFFICIAL 9 MONTH ANNIVERSARY FOR NFAN! OMG!**

**I love you all so much. And on behalf of Nightmares for a Ninja, go have AWESOME days/nights for 26 days until I see you all again. :') *bawls* Goodbye, my friends! Until then,**

**Kairi Venomus, Narumi Saiko, and my wonderful "beta" Emiko **


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